Lineaments
by spirifiume
Summary: In the latest chapter: Although Mutant X escaped with the prion, most of Emma's team was captured while supporting them. Will the Dominion come to their aid? Whose team is Emma really on anyway and what will she decide about Dana? A crossover story.
1. Lest He Become

1 – Lest He Become

I

Emma DeLauro was dressed in long black slacks and a low cut black shirt that contrasted starkly with her pale white skin and bright red hair. She entered the work are of Sanctuary, the Mutant X headquarters, to find Adam Kane, their leader at the main computer console. He was a handsome older man, in his late middle age, and was also dressed in black.

"Anything?" Emma inquired as she walked to stand beside Adam.

"I've broken into Haines's private computer. Once I've reconstructed the search, I can confirm the names of the people that the killers are looking for."

"Confirm?" Emma asked. "So, you have some idea who they're looking for?"

"No, I didn't mean 'confirm'," Adam said, shaking his head to ward off the question.

Emma tilted her head and examined the man as she stood behind his left shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. I'm just, you know, I want to find the people before the killers do."

Three or four responses came to Emma's tongue, but she was not sure which to utter. "What do you want me to do? Pretend that I believe you?"

Adam turned toward her and spoke with a measured tone. "I want you to stay out of my head. You're not invited." He turned back toward his work and opened a channel to the _Double Helix_. "Jesse, I want you to patch me in to Shalimar's feed from Naxcon."

Jesse Kilmartin, another member of Mutant X was flying the stealth plane in the area of Naxcon, a chemical facility believed to be connected to the murders they were investigating. "Coming at ya'." Emma heard Jesse say over the radio. She then heard the voices of Shalimar Fox and her father, Nicholas Fox, who owned and operated Naxcon.

"We've developed the broadest range of supplements in the industry," Nicholas Fox said.

"I'm surprised you haven't moved into genetic research," his daughter responded. "You know, modified grains, that sort of thing." Even at this distance, Emma could feel the turmoil in Shalimar's mind. Before departing to be reunited with her father, Shalimar had revealed the source of her feelings toward him and the imprint of her pain still lay heavy on Emma's heart. She felt the woman's hatred for the man she had run from twenty years ago, but mingled with her hatred was a grain of hope that maybe he had changed and they could somehow become a family again.

"That's a science that betrayed me once. I have no interest in giving it another chance." Emma felt Adam's reaction to these words. Nicholas had brought his daughter to Adam for help when she was a young girl, but, though the therapies Adam employed, saved Shalimar's life, there were unexpected side effects. The animal DNA used to repair her defective strands, bound with the human genes and began a process of mutation. She became aggressive and feral, possessing superhuman abilities. Nicholas Fox had wanted his daughter back the way she was before she became what he considered an uncontrollable mutant thing.

"What's in there?" asked Shalimar's voice.

"Oh, that's where we do our most cutting edge R&D. I'd show you around, but they have some sensitive tests set up." Emma watched over Adam's shoulder as the tiny camera Shalimar carried with her fed video of the doorway to the top-secret research area.

"Sounds mysterious," Shalimar said.

A voice cut in garbling what Mr. Fox said next. It was Jesse from the _Double Helix_. "Shalimar, whatever we're looking for is behind that door. What's in there? They're protected by more security systems than the rest of the place put together."

"Our competitors are always trying to get an early look. Let's go back to my office and uh, we'll talk," Mr. Fox said. Emma knew that they had found what they were looking for as far as their mission was concerned, but her chief concern now was for Shalimar. She sensed a reluctant warming toward her father, which might be dangerous, if he truly had a part to play in the murders. He had already scarred his daughter enough and Emma wished there had been a way to get the information they needed without exposing Shalimar's deepest psychological wounds. "I still want to know more about you."

"I told you."

"Knowing you work in a clothing store doesn't tell me anything. I want to know what you do with your spare time and what you like, what you care about."

"I don't know. I like exercise. I like being outside. I'm not crazy about being cooped up in a place like this." Emma felt the tension mounting. Shalimar's feral side was starting to show.

"And how do you feel?" Everything had been a lead up to this question for Mr. Fox.

"You mean, am I still different?" Shalimar answered her own question. "Yeah."

"But you're okay? I mean after what that bastard did to you?"

"Who?" Shalimar asked.

"The doctor from Genomex. Adam Kane." A wave of guilt emanated from the sitting before Emma. She was sorely tempted to reach into his mind. He had so many secrets, but she was stopped by the sense that no matter what he did, he meant it for good. "You were too young to understand, but I found out a lot of things about him afterwards."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's not important now. He's water under the bridge. What's important is we're together again." Just then Emma caught a sequence of visions from Adam's mind. She hadn't been reading him, but his proximity and the strength of his feelings made it impossible for her to shield herself from his thoughts. The pieces of the puzzle clicked together and she simply turned away from him and walked out of the room. She could feel Adam's eyes on her as she left and heard a few final words from Nicholas Fox. "You and me. I've got so much more to show you."

II

Emma went to her room to meditate on what she had seen. She thought back on every mission they had been sent on, every unanswered question she had about how Adam came to leave Genomex and found Mutant X as well as what his current agenda might be. Everything supported the intuitive conclusion she had come to while listening the Shalimar and her father talk and seeing the images and emotions that Adam could not hide from her. Though she hoped she was wrong, she knew the Sanctuary computers would confirm everything. She only wished that she knew what to do with the information.

Shalimar's distress hit Emma like a slap. She immediately made her way to the main operations room of Sanctuary where she heard raised voices. "Look, I told you guys before, I don't think my father's involved." Emma turned the corner to see Shalimar, a fit—muscular even—blonde wearing a floral bordered gray tank top and blue jeans.

"Shalimar, it's a hell of a time to develop a set of family values," Jesse said. He was handsome, of medium height, with dirty blonde hair. Jesse was wearing a dark green t-shirt and brown jacket.

"You know what, Jess, why don't you pour yourself a big glass of 'shut-the-hell-up'," Brennan Mulwray was a tall man with dark hair and eyes. Sometimes Emma thought he was too perfect looking, like he would run in a telephone booth and come out in blue and red tights with an 'S' on his chest. Of course, Superman probably wouldn't have so many tattoos. Brennan was almost a stereotypical 'bad boy', but he had a soft spot for Shalimar.

"All right, you two guys relax," Adam said. "Shalimar, all you have to do is guide, Jesse will take it from there."

"Whatever," Shalimar said and walked off. Emma could sense her unhappiness, but it seemed that she would be okay.

"Adam, I got the information back of the names on Haines's database," Emma said.

"And?"

"There were two: Christopher Darnell and a woman named Elizabeth Burton."

"That's it?" Brennan asked.

"I uploaded the information onto the main computer," Emma said.

"All right, you two go find them. It's imperative that we get to them before the other guys do." Adam instructed. "Go," he said. Brennan and Jesse left the room and Emma waited until she was alone with the Mutant X leader.

"You know, there was another name on that list," Emma said, again standing just behind and to the side of Adam, while he avoided her eyes. "Yours." He did not respond and continued working at his computer terminal. "So, what the hell is your name doing on a list of people needed by somebody manufacturing mutants?"

"My name is on a lot of lists," he said.

"That's not the right answer, Adam." Emma waited, glaring at him until he finally turned to face her.

All Adam said was: "That's the only answer available right now." Emma wondered if she would ever be able to provoke him into coming clean. She left him by himself and prepared to go after the other two people on the list.

Emma found Brennan in the hallway, but he was busy in a conversation with Shalimar, so she decided to wait in the _Helix_ until he was ready. Before long, he came aboard and they headed toward the last know location of Christopher Darnell.

They exchanged few words apart from those necessary to navigate and pilot the plane. Emma continued searching for their target as Brennan flew the _Helix_. Both were consumed by their own thoughts and concern for Shalimar. "Damn it," she said. "We have to change course."

"Why?"

"I tried to contact the first guy on the list, Darnell…."

"Yeah?"

"He disappeared," Emma said.

"I guess our friends got to him first. All right, listen. Feed me the coordinates for the next name on the list. We need to get there before them." Emma transmitted the information to Brennan. "All right, thanks," he said as the overview map came up on his screen. "Listen, Emma, did you get any kind of a strange hit off of Adam back there?"

"Look, if I sense something from someone, it's like a priest hearing a confession. I can't talk about it." Now was neither the time nor place to reveal what she had learned about Adam. When the time came, she would make sure her friends knew what they needed to know, but that time had not yet come.

Brennan let out a brief nasal exhalation that approached a short laugh. "All right, Emma, it's good to have morals, but you need to know when to cut them loose."

"Brennan, I'm really worried about Shalimar." She wasn't ready to talk about Adam yet, but she was also concerned for the feral and she knew that Brennan was too.

"Oh, so her you can talk about."

Emma forged on. "Look she's going through what all of us have gone through. Adam is…is more of a father to me than my own father was." When she said this, she realized that she was experiencing a little bit of the betrayal and disappointment that Shalimar had suffered, but Emma was an adult, while Shalimar had been through unspeakable things at the age of only ten. "All of you guys are my family. But sometimes, I wish that…that my mom had done the right thing. You know? That she had been there to worry about me instead of going off on whatever New Age kick was popular at the time. I mean, sometimes I still think about looking her up."

"So why haven't you?" Brennan flipped a few switches and checked his displays as they approached the target site.

"Because when you can see into someone's soul, you don't have the same illusions that other people do. You want to believe that people can change, but they don't. Shalimar has to realize that."

"Kind of a dismal outlook, Emma."

"Sometimes the world is a dismal place to live," she said. They flew on in silence.

III

Brennan landed the _Double Helix_ and he and Emma deplaned. Nearby was a flower shop that was owned by Elizabeth Burton, the next to last name on the list. If she was already dead, only Adam would remain.

"This is it," Emma said as they approached the stairs down to the below-street-level shop.

From inside, a woman's voice cried, "Let me go!"

"Let's go," Brennan said and led the way down the steps to the glass door of the store. "Hey!" Brennan stepped toward two men who had Elizabeth Burton pinned down. A third man on crutches was standing off to the side. "Hey! I was hoping I would run into you creeps again." The bigger man, a tattooed behemoth with a blond goatee wearing a black t-shirt over a sleeveless green hooded fleece stood up to faced Brennan, while the smaller man with blond spiky hair dressed in a black trench coat pressed a needle to the woman's throat. "What are you doing? Picking on a girl? Why don't you try someone your own size?"

Though she didn't recognize the man on crutches, Emma knew the large man and the smaller one who were holding down the woman who was the next to last name on their list. She and Shalimar had been backing up Jesse and Brennan on an exchange mission after a man named Richard Haines was asked to sell information relating to the creation of mutant humans. The two men had overpowered all four of them and now Brennan and Emma were outnumbered three to two.

"What, didn't you learn the last time?" the big man responded.

The third person of the group, whose left leg was missing, held out a crutch to hold back his partner. He was wearing a black great coat over a gray hooded sweatshirt with a black knit hat pulled tightly on his head. "You look about my size," he said.

"I don't think you want to do this," Brennan said and then jumped back as the man swung a crutch at his head. He then ducked under a second swing of the crutch, but was caught by a kick to the stomach. Brennan blocked an attack of the man's right crutch with his forearm, but then was clipped in the forehead as the left crutch swung around again. Another jump back and another duck were all Emma saw before she noticed the large goateed man coming toward her.

Emma prepared to fire a psionic starburst at the man, but recognized from their previous encounter that when he pulled his right arm back, he was preparing to launch a telekinetic punch. Quickly, she jumped to the right as the force of the blow struck an ornamental rock and sent if flying into the wall. She dodged another psi-punch by jumping back to where she originally was and the energy struck a glass-topped table, which shattered when it struck concrete ten feet away. From the corner of her eye, Emma saw Brennan had grabbed the one-legged man's crutch and was sending a pulse of electricity through it. She turned away from him and toward her attacker.

"Nowhere to run," he said.

"Guess not," Emma replied as a glowing ball of psionic energy formed from her forehead. The psychic blast sent the big man flying into a stack of flowers, plants and bags of fertilizer.

She now turned back to Brennan and the third attacker. He had wrestled his crutch away and struck Brennan, who went flying back into a table and rolled over it onto the ground with a crash. The smaller man had let go of Elizabeth Burton and fired a stream of intense pain at Brennan as he tried to get up off of the floor. Before she could do anything, the mutant turned and hit Emma with second blast of pain. She fell to her knees and then to the ground, grasping her head and crying out.

"He's dead," the one-legged man said.

"I've got what we need, let's move," said the pain mutant. Emma, just barely able to get to her knees, heard the footsteps of the two living attackers retreat out the front door.

"Emma, did you have to kill him?" Brennan asked, getting to his feet.

"I didn't even hit him that hard," she said with panting breaths. Brennan grabbed her arm and helped her to her feet.

"Is she...?" Brennan asked, looking at the still form of Elizabeth Burton.

Emma could not detect any mental activity from the woman. "Yes, she's dead."

"So much for the list."

"Yeah," Emma said, but she knew there was still one more name.

"We better take that big guy's body with us. Find out why he died and maybe, who made him."

"And Elizabeth?"

"I think it's best to leave her here. Someone will find her." Emma was silent. "C'mon, we can't do anything for her." He heaved to fallen enemy onto his shoulder.

"It just seems so cruel to leave her just lying there," Emma said. "What about her family and friends? What will they think happened?"

"Will it be any better if she is missing and they never find a body?" Emma concentrated on Elizabeth and was careful not to look at the man she had just killed. She didn't say another word as she led the way back to the _Helix_.

"Are you all right," Brennan asked, "with what happened back there."

"I'm okay," she said. "It's not the first time." She was thankful Brennan was quiet for the rest of the flight. The emotions of the last dying moments of two more people had been added to her psychic memory.

When the plane landed in the hangar at Sanctuary, Brennan loaded the body of the dead mutant onto the stretcher and brought it to the lab for Jesse to autopsy. Emma made her way back to her room, but she stopped as she passed Shalimar's door. She knocked twice softly and after a few moments, the woman's voice called for her to: "Come in."

Emma opened to door to find the blond feral pacing back and forth. Anger, confusion, frustration, love and hate all flavored her emotional palette. "Shalimar…," Emma said.

"Mason Eckhart. My father is in league with Mason Eckhart." Emma knew that Shalimar and Jesse had infiltrated the secret research laboratory of Naxcon, while she was on the trail of Elizabeth Burton and she knew the name Mason Eckhart well. He was the evil genius behind the rise and fall of Genomex. He had twisted Adam Kane's research to his own ends and for a long time was Mutant X's main enemy. Everyone had thought him dead, or at least imprisoned. "I saw him…in my father's building! Eckhart must be the one who made those freaky mutants we met. How could he do this? I thought my father had changed." Tears were welling up in her eyes and Emma walked to her. She put her arms around the woman and hugged her tight. Shalimar pulled Emma close and cried on her shoulder. Some thought it a sign of weakness when a woman cried, but Emma only saw strength in Shalimar. Emma ran her fingers through the feral's long blond hair, soothing her until the tears stopped. She pulled away and her dark brown eyes looked up into Emma's bright blues. "I'm glad it was you, and not one of the guys who saw that."

Emma laughed slightly. "What if it was Brennan?" She moved strands of hair back from Shalimar's tear-streaked face.

"Please, he already feels like he has to protect me, even though most of the time I end up saving his ass." She had gained control of her emotions, though a stray tear still leaked now and again from the corners of her eyes, which she pushed away with the heels of her hands. They hugged again and Emma kissed the other woman's forehead. Then, without thinking, she leaned down with her head tilted slightly to the left and pressed her lips to Shalimar's. She reciprocated. Her upper lip was between Emma's lips as she embraced Emma's lower one. Emma moved her head to the right and gently kissed Shalimar's lower lip. She could feel the feral's nails lightly scratch down her back as Emma pulled the muscular woman tight against her body. They both found their mouths opening up and they kissed one another passionately for what might have been seconds or minutes.

Suddenly, Shalimar pushed Emma away. Both were panting for breath. "What was that?" She asked, her voice taking on a slightly accusatory tone.

"You were there too," Emma said with a smirk. This was something she never saw—Shalimar flustered.

The other woman smiled. "I bet Brennan and Jesse would have paid a pretty penny to see that. We just have to make sure that it never, ever happens again."

"Why is that?" Emma asked.

"Emma, we've both been through a lot, but one kiss does not mean we have to switch teams."

"I wouldn't be switching," Emma said. Shalimar was shocked. Emma could see it on her face as clearly as she could feel it from her mind. "You didn't know?"

"It's not like you ever said anything."

"Did you really think the reason I couldn't get a guy was because of my fashion sense? I wasn't looking for a guy at all."

"That was just a joke." Shalimar took a few paces away and then turned around again to look at Emma. "So, you're a …."

"The 'L' word?" Emma paused. "Yes. I always have been."

"What about that guy you dated in high school?"

"What guy?" Emma was confused. She usually didn't lie to hide the fact of her sexual preference, preferring to obfuscate or otherwise avoid the truth with double-talk.

"The Finnish one," Shalimar said.

Emma smiled. "I said I dated an exchange student from Helsinki. I never gave a gender. It's a pronoun avoidance game we closeted gals like to play. We were the geekiest couple. She had every episode of Star Trek dubbed into Finnish and we would watch together as well as do other things. I learned the language from James Tiberius Kirk."

"That explains why you knew how to say 'lower the force field' in Finnish." She took a moment to process this new information and could now pick out so many clues in hindsight. "How about Tyler?" Shalimar remembered the deep affection Emma had felt for the erstwhile eco-terrorist who had given his life to save hers.

Suddenly, Emma felt her amusement at revealing herself to Shalimar replaced by the sorrow of that wound. "What Tyler and I had was a connection between two psionics. I loved his mind and I loved him as a human being, not as a man. There were some physical moments, kissing," she said, "but we were never biblical. Tyler knew and accepted me in a way no other man or woman ever could. He loved me even knowing everything that I was and I loved him just the same." Emma's own eyes began to tear up.

"Biblical?" Shalimar asked.

"As in there was no chance of any begetting, though if I ever could have lived happily with a man, it would have been with him."

"Emma, I love you," Shalimar said, "but I don't feel for you that way and I never will. You are like my sister. That moment between us was an aberration. It won't happen again." Emma knew that her facial expression changed. She was hurt, even though she knew that wasn't the intention. Shalimar picked up on the change. "I don't blame you. It's not like I tried to fight you off." She tried to laugh it off. "But that is it. Do you understand?"

Emma saw guilt, embarrassment and anger in Shalimar's aura. She also saw doubt. "I understand." Emma turned and left the feral's room. Now was not the time to pursue things any further. Maybe once everything was settled with her father and Mason Eckhart.

IV

Emma heard Shalimar's voice just as she was about to enter the main tactical room of Sanctuary and waited to hear what was going on. "Okay, Adam, we've been patient. I want to know what the hell Eckhart's been doing at my father's company," Shalimar demanded.

"He's tricked your father…into providing him with the resources that he needs to support his new project," Adam responded.

"Which is?" It was Brennan's voice.

"Well, according to the material on these hard drives, Eckhart is on the verge of controlling the keys to life. For what he plans to do with it, of course, we'll have to ask him in person," Adam answered.

Shalimar spoke again. "Okay, if he's so close to having his hands on such big secrets, why are his mutant's so messed up?"

"The guy who died in the flower shop had the metabolism of an eighty year old, Adam," Jesse's voice said. After her 'talk' with Shalimar, Emma had briefly looked at the results of the autopsy Jesse had performed on the dead mutant. She was reassured that her psionic blast would not have killed him had he been healthy, though any killing left its residual guilt.

"Eckhart is attempting to do selective mutation from a specific blueprint, but he doesn't have the required DNA to perfect the process. The samples that he's collecting will allow him to do that."

Emma had heard enough. She entered the room just as Brennan asked, "How do you know all this?"

"It's not important how I know it. What's important is that we get in there, we get him, we shut his operation down as quickly as possible, so I'm going to ready the _Helix_ for immediate take-off and then you four are going in." Adam turned away from the others and back toward his computer console.

Emma stood across the workstation from Adam and shook her head. "No," she said. Everyone looked at her as she formed a starburst of psionic energy, which illuminated her face.

"Whoa, wait, Emma, what are you doing?" Brennan said.

"You were right, Brennan. There's a point where you have to go past your usual moral code. Now, I've understood what's been going on for a long time and I think the rest of you deserve to know too." Emma held the threat of the psionic blast for all to see, but did not fire it at Adam yet.

"Emma, stop it," Adam demanded.

"I could make you talk, Adam, but you're going to do it yourself," Emma said and let the ball of psychic force dissipate to nothing. "So tell them about the third name on the list. Tell them what it all means."

Adam turned back to face his team. "All right, so you want to know how Eckhart got the blueprint for making mutants? He got it from me."

Only Jesse responded audibly. "What?"

"After I realized the genetic mutations that my therapies were causing I stopped using them to treat people, but I couldn't just throw that information away, so I gathered specific genetic samples, including my own DNA, and I experimented on selected mutations in secret."

"Yours was the third name on the list," Shalimar asked.

Adam half smiled and exhaled his breath before he said, "He needs our DNA to complete my work. He wants to recreate it."

"That's what my dad was trying to tell me," Shalimar said as she walk across the floor, looking left and sizing up anew the man she thought she knew so well. "You're no better than Eckhart."

"I was on the verger of cracking the genetic code," Adam said, his voice clinical. Shalimar simply shook her head in disbelief. "The possibilities for humanity…they were limitless."

"So, you were just in it for the knowledge?" Brennan asked, disappointment flavoring each word. "Wow, it must be hard going back to being plain old Adam Kane after playing god for so long."

"All right, I knew nobody should have this information. It was too dangerous for anyone to have. So what did I do?" Emma listened to Adams words and monitored the emotions in the room. She didn't know how this would play out, but she had been unable to let her friends face any more danger without knowing the whole story. Adam was angry and defensive as he raised his voice and said, "I stopped my experiments. I encrypted my information. I took it out of Genomex as quickly as I could."

Now Shalimar raised her voice. "You can't hide anything from Eckhart. You should know that."

"For all we know you wanted them to have it," Brennan accused.

"What does that mean," Adam asked, sensing the challenge.

"I don't know. Hey, all I know is we're having a hard time believing anything that's coming out of your mouth right now." Brennan walked away, followed closely by Shalimar.

"Wait, wait. Where're you going?" Adam asked. Brennan and Jesse stopped and turned back to him.

"To Naxcon," Shalimar said. "I'm going to get my father away from Eckhart before he gets in too deep."

"Shalimar, it's too late for that," Adam said.

"I spent all these years hating him, thinking you were my family." Shalimar pointed a finger directly at Adam as she said this. "And now it turns out he may be the only one telling me the truth." She continued out of the room with Brennan.

Adam turned to Jesse and Emma. "I want you two to monitor Brennan and Shalimar's progress and provide them with any assistance they need to get Nicholas Fox out of there." They looked at one another, but didn't make any movement to comply. "Listen, I know you don't want to take orders from me right now, but whatever I have done in the past, believe me that right now the only thing I want to do is help my team." He met Emma's eyes and Jesse's in turn.

"We'll help Brennan and Shalimar," Emma said, "but not because you order it. Jesse and I will hold our own counsel on following any _suggestions_," she emphasized the word, "you might have to offer."

Emma and Jesse followed their friends as they traveled to Naxcon, but shortly after entering the facility they lost track of the two. If the problem was atmospheric interference or electronic jamming, Brennan and Shalimar's comlink rings would alert them to the fact and they would call in to Sanctuary by another method if they couldn't get clear and use their rings. It was standard procedure and the rest of Mutant X hoped against hope that the call would come.

"Damn it!" Adam exclaimed. "Why the hell haven't they called in?"

"Because their comlinks have gone dead, Adam," Jesse responded, though he knew Adam was already aware of this. Jesse shook his head.

"'Cause Eckhart knew that they'd be coming." Adam leaned heavily on a laboratory table.

"Adam, there's a call coming in from Naxcon," Emma informed him.

"Patch it through," Adam said and began typing on a keyboard.

Mason Eckhart's face appeared on the screen. He was different than when Emma last saw him. Now, his hair was black and slicked back. He was wearing glasses with rectangular black frames and a pinstripe suit. "Hello, Adam. Have you missed me?" he said.

Jesse and Emma stepped back from the main monitor. Adam approached the screen, which was equipped with a camera for two-way video conferencing. "You're looking more like your old self, Mason."

"Feeling like a million bucks," Eckhart said. "It's amazing what a new hairstyle can do for one."

"What have you done with Brennan and Shalimar?" Adam asked.

"I'm afraid you'll have to come and see for yourself." He paused. "And Adam, time is of the essence." The screen went dark. Adam went to his workbench and picked up an electronic device.

"Where do you think you're going?" Emma asked as he began to leave the room.

"Well, you ought to know. You seem to know everything else," he said.

"Look, Adam, I didn't want it to have to happen this way," Emma said.

"None of us did," Adam replied and turned again to leave.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Jesse asked. "Your DNA is the last piece that Eckhart needs to control mutation. Are you just going to deliver that up to him?"

"I'm not going to let Brennan and Shalimar suffer for my mistakes," Adam said.

"After he gets what he wants, he will kill you," Emma warned.

"I didn't say I was going in there unprepared." He held up the device he was holding. "I have a plan."

"Good. So, you want to fill us in?" Jesse asked.

"What do you mean, 'us'?"

"Yeah, us. It took me twenty-eight years to find someone to believe in, Adam. I'm not just going to throw that away," Jesse said.

Emma had wondered if any of the team would support Adam again. Jesse had just given her the answer. Maybe Brennan and Shalimar would come around. She couldn't imagine what it was like to judge a man's character simply by his words and actions. She knew Adam meant well, but his ends did not always seem to justify his means. Still, he was learning and changing. She decided to let herself be swayed, at least for now. "Let's do this," Emma said. She and Jesse joined Adam.

V

Adam, Emma and Jesse made their way through the Naxcon complex. The first person they encountered was the pained inducing mutant. Emma remembered she still had a score to settle with him from the flower shop.

"I'm Adam Kane."

"I know who you are," the man said. Emma was surprised to see that he was much taller than Adam, even though he had seemed small next to the mutant she had killed. The man turned away from them and pressed his eye close to a retinal scanner. The door unlocked and he stepped into an elevator.

"Are you sure this is the right thing to do," Emma asked.

"It's our only chance," Adam said. The looked at one another and then all three stepped into the elevator with Eckhart's mutant.

When the doors opened, Mason Eckhart was waiting for them. "Adam, it's been a long time." Nicholas Fox, the one-legged mutant and another person Emma didn't recognize, were also in the secret laboratory, the main part of which was six feet lower than the landing onto which the elevator let out. "Of course, being in the pod made it seem even longer." Mason Eckhart had been locked in a stasis chamber when a super powerful Genomex mutant had staged a coup and taken over the facility.

"How'd you get out?" Adam asked. They walked to their left, where steps led down to the main part of the room. At the bottom of the stairs, Brennan and Shalimar were held in the green light of a force field. The lab was actually under the bay with a Plexiglas ceiling and above, they could see water, through which sunlight still shone, casting eerie shadows that never stayed still.

"You don't think I'd devise a trap without a backdoor for me to wriggle out? Six months in, any pod that I hadn't coded the locks on was automatically reopened," Eckhart explained.

"I was hoping you'd have used some of that time to think about all of the damage that you've done."

"Beautiful," Mason said. "As sanctimonious as ever." He had been leaning on a desk with his arms crossed, but now straightened up and took a step toward Adam. "Actually, I did use my time for thinking. I thought a lot about you and what I planned to do when I got out."

"How long have you had my files?" Adam asked.

"I had the files as soon as you saved them, but it took my people until just a few months ago to break the encryption. You always were the best and now your brilliance and your DNA will change the world in a way you never had the courage to." Eckhart turned away from Adam.

"This isn't about courage, it's about the fact that there are some things that people shouldn't try to control." As Adam said this, Emma was proud of him. She felt a little more certain of her decision to trust him again.

"Adam, I thought you'd understood. Destroying disease. Creating a race of perfect humans. Turning on genes to make people live forever. These are dreams that people like you live for." Mason Eckhart walked over to a video monitor that displayed the Naxcon logo. He turned again to face Adam. "Thanks to your research and your DNA, I'll be the father to a whole new race." Eckhart flipped a switch and the video screen showed a room full of embryonic chambers.

Nicholas Fox approached Mason Eckhart. "What's going on? That's not the agreement. You can't do it. I won't let you."

"I'll keep my end of the bargain. Your daughter will be returned to you cured," Eckhart said and then almost hissed the words, "as soon as I get what I want."

"What about your friends here. What have you given them besides a lot of pain?" Adam asked. "All he's given you is a life that's going to end very soon."

"What is he talking about?" the pain mutant asked. Emma sensed his concern. It was something he had suspected.

Adam turned to look over his shoulder at the man with blond spiky hair. "Why do you think he needs my DNA?" He turned back to the others. "He needs it to perfect the process of mutation, because you're just rough drafts. That's why your friend died. That's why you're going to die." Adam pointed a finger at Mason. "What? You forgot to tell them this, Eckhart?"

"That's enough," Eckhart commanded, "I need the samples. Take him."

"I don't think so," Adam said, reaching his right hand into his black leather coat and pulled out a silver metal device consisting of a handle attached to a hoop with highly potent battery running along the diameter from the handle to the opposite end of the hoop. "This is an electromagnetic pulse generator. It's strong enough to fry every piece of electronic equipment in this building."

"Really Adam," Eckhart responded, seemingly unconcerned. "It showed up on the sensors the moment you walked through the front door and that's when it was rendered unworkable. When are you going to learn that I really am a step ahead?" Emma looked from Mason to Adam and saw that he had no answer. "Take him," Eckhart ordered again. One of his mutants did an acrobatic flip and swung at Adam, but the Mutant X leader ducked and threw a forearm in the man's face, sending him falling back into a metal tank.

Adam was struck by the bright purple flair put off by the pain-inducing mutant and he fell to the ground. The first attacker recovered and with the one-legged mutant, joined the fray.

After taking out Adam, the pain mutant turned on Emma. "Lady, you're about to have the worst day of your life."

"I don't think so," Emma said and formed a starburst. As the blond man formed a purple arc of pain to cast at her, Emma hit him with a numbing psionic blast. She used her telempathic powers to completely alleviate his suffering. "It's hard to share pain you don't feel, isn't it?" she asked him as he collapsed on the stairs. She had successfully neutralized his attack ability without killing him. Emma turned to see that Jesse had freed Brennan and Shalimar from the force field. Brennan was in a rematch against the one-legged mutant, while Shalimar was engaging the acrobat who had first attacked Adam. One after another, Emma saw them both take out their foes with kicks to the head. Only Mason Eckhart was left.

Emma noticed that Nicholas Fox stood at a computer terminal as the battle raged behind him. Suddenly, an orange screen appeared on the large flat panel monitor he was standing at. It read: CRITICAL PRESSURE LOSS DETECTED and CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT. A clarion alarm began sounding through the building.

"You idiot, what did you do?" Mason Eckhart demanded of him.

Shalimar's father backed away from Eckhart, his arms spread. "I opened up the steam valves. I released the pressure," he said. Then raising his voice, he called out: "It's all about to go up!" Just then the cap on a steam pipe that ran through the secret Naxcon laboratory popped off, letting a jet of hot steam into the room. Brennan, Emma, Shalimar and Adam ducked, fortunate not to be burnt.

"You always have to screw things up, don't you, Adam?" Mason Eckhart accused. He fled the scene, followed by his three mutants, who had recovered enough to guard Eckhart's escape in the only elevator connected to the underwater lab.

"Get down!" Adam warned Nicholas Fox as a pipe detached from the ceiling, falling just to the left of the man. "How much time do we have?" Adam yelled the question, grabbing handfuls of Mr. Fox's jacket arms.

"About a minute, maybe less." Sounds of venting steam and alarms made it near impossible to hear. Emma could sense the panic filling the air.

"Is there another way out of here?" Adam waved his right arm at the pending devastation. Emma and Brennan approached them from the right side.

"That way!" Shalimar's father answered. He pointed to a metal hatch with a raised cross reinforcing its center.

Adam grabbed Brennan and pulled him in the direction of their escape route. "Brennan, hit that!" he ordered the tall elemental as Shalimar came up behind.

With a grunt, Mulwray let out twin blasts of electricity that knocked the hatch from its mounting, opening up their way out.

"All right. Great. Let's go, go, go!" Adam called out. Emma was the first one out, followed by Shalimar and Nicholas Fox. Jesse preceded Adam and Brennan brought up the rear. "Now, go, go!" he continued to yell. Once through the hatch, they all had to climb a narrow metal ladder up a concrete shaft.

As the six men and women came to the top of the service shaft, they heard two large explosions, accompanied by the sounds of breaking glass. They ran across a series of glass-walled bridges that connected the Naxcon Corporation buildings, which were all built up on individual pylons. Adam led the group and when Emma heard four more explosions, she knew that they might not make it. The lights were beginning to flicker and in some buildings, they were already out. Adam encouraged them to run. "Let's go!"

Two more huge explosions came from the direction they had been running. There was nowhere to go. Adam had been leading, but he had no more idea of what to do than anyone else. "Which way?" he asked

"Go right," Shalimar called out.

Nicholas agreed, "Right!"

"Go right," Adam echoed them.

As they entered a lobby area, a huge explosion knocked everyone from their feet. Several of them cried out in fear and surprise. The lateral support beams had given way and the building they were in was now only supported by its weakened main pylon. The weight and movement was too much and the entire structure began to be impaled, pierced through the center by the pylon it rested on. Everything began to tilt as metal twisted and gave way. A giant cube emblazoned with the Naxcon logo swung precariously above them as the building shifted. Ornamental columns fell and began sliding across the floor, which began to crack. All six found themselves on the ground and falling towards the outer window. They managed to catch hold of a long crack in the marble floor where what was now the lower half was beginning to split from the upper half, creating a ledge just large enough to grab a finger hold.

"All right, up! Hang on!" Adam encouraged them. Emma had almost lost her grip and he used his right arm to help her regain the ledge as he held on desperately with his left hand. Jesse helped Nicholas in a similar way as he began to fall. Fish tanks, chairs, vases, all began tumbling toward Mutant X and Nicholas Fox. Shalimar began to slide, but Brennan was able to catch her. The angle became steeper, approaching the vertical.

"Emma!" Adam shouted.

"Hang on," Shalimar cried.

"All right?" Adam looked to the young redhead.

"Brennan?" Shalimar looked to her left and found him still there.

Emma lost her grip with one hand. "Emma, hang on!" Adam called again just as another enormous explosion rocked the structure. All of the windows broke. Above, they heard the sounds of antennae and exhaust stacks collapsing and sliding down the roof. It was all about to go.


	2. Loss

2 – Loss

I

Cold winter air was rushing through the broken windows. Six people clung to life with their very fingertips, but it was futile. The building broke away from its supporting struts and the twisted metal that still held it to the central pylon. The world was falling around her. Emma tumbled along with the Naxcon building into the roiling waters below. Her own feelings of fright were magnified by the terror of Nicholas Fox and of her friends. She even felt the fear of Mason Eckhart as he attempted another escape route with his cohorts.

The impact with the water was a shock. It was so cold. Her winter coat quickly became sodden. The human body is buoyant, but the metal, cinderblock and concrete of the Naxcon facility were not. Emma tried to find her way to the surface, but kept being hit by sinking debris or running into pieces of the building as they settled, collapsed further and began settling again. She could feel the water pressure increase and press on her eardrums. Her lungs burned as she began to run out of air.

Emma found herself caught maybe twenty or thirty feet below the surface by a huge corner of the building that had sheared off. She was trapped inside of a tetrahedronal space formed by the muddy bottom of the bay and the walls and floor of a piece of the structure that had sunk into the silt on all sides. At the very top of the pyramid, was a small pocket of air, where the three sides of her prison joined. Emma swam to this high point and took a breath. Her lips and nose just cleared the surface if she leaned her head all the way back. It was difficult to tread water; her clothes and shoes weighed her down and her fingers were already too numb to undo any of the laces or fasteners.

She reached out with her mind and found Brennan, Shalimar, Jesse, Adam and Nicholas. What she read from Adam was pain. He had dislocated a hip, but was able to make it to the surface. Emma joined with his mind so that she could see what he saw. Using only his arms, he was pulling himself toward the shore. She sensed the torment in his mind and his desire to help look for the people he loved, but he was physically unable to do anything for them and wasn't sure himself if he would live. Emma didn't want to think about that possibility. Nicholas would probably survive. He was suffering from some severe contusions, but had made it to the surface and was floating with the assistance of a plastic faux marble column, kicking his way toward land. His daughter and Brennan were still clinging to life as well. New Mutants could survive much worse than a normal human, but they were still underwater and if help didn't arrive in time, their chances would be slim.

The fear and panic Emma sensed from these four amplified her own terror, but she found a spot of relative calm when she connected with Jesse Kilmartin. He had phased through to the other side of the building's floor, which had tumbled over to become the roof, just as everything sank into the icy waters of the bay. Though still scared, he was treading the icy water, searching for his friends. Emma saw the faces of the Mutant X team as Jesse thought about them and called out their names. "Adam!" he cried out. "Emma! Shalimar! Brennan!" Jesse thought he was alone, the soul survivor. Emma tried to keep him calm, slightly adjusting his emotions so that he could function. Comparing the visions she received from Jesse with what Adam had seen, she concluded that Adam must have been pushed far from the disaster by the force of water displaced by the falling building or some other means, while Jesse was right below where they had been hanging.

Jesse caught sight of Nicholas Fox making his way to shore, but he kept looking around in the blackness, hoping to see some further sign of life. Emma could see the devastation of the Naxcon complex, where several fires were burning. Not even a minute had passed since they had hit the water and Emma was plunged deep beneath it. Since Jesse had managed to make it safely to the surface, there was still a chance to save some of the others. Emma knew that she was much further away from him and more difficult to get to than Brennan and Shalimar. By the time Jesse reached her, the other two would run out of air and body heat. There was only one course of action she could live with, albeit briefly.

Emma reached out to Brennan, who was the worst off. Brennan had swallowed a lot of water and also, out of desperation, had shocked himself, attempting to use his powers in salt water. She linked with him and then transmitted his feelings to Jesse, who she had calmed down enough to feel her presence in his mind. Her lungs ached and she longed for another breath, but she had to make each one last. With her help, Jesse sensed the panic and rage of the elemental pinned under a large metal beam—the dread of impending death. Emma let Jesse know the direction it was emanating from and he swam to a point about ten yards distant, where he massed and immediately sank like a stone. Though he couldn't see anything in the murky water, Jesse could still feel the emotions through Emma and thereby zero in on the man. He felt a hand, gripped it hard and then phased Brennan through the metal beam that had held him immobile. Jesse swam up to the surface, pulling the elemental behind him. Jesse helped float Brennan's barely conscious form as he choked out water.

"Brennan, man, you got to keep your face above water. I have to find Shalimar," Jesse shouted as Emma transmitted another psychic link. With one life saved, Emma squeezed her face into the tiny reservoir of air. Jesse began swimming with all of his might in the feral's direction. Shalimar's animal terror was an even stronger beacon than Brennan's fear had been. Jesse massed to sink down toward his friend while Emma continued to guide him.

Emma was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. Her entire body was numb with cold and she was so tired that she hardly had the strength to find the pocket of air again and take another breath. Jesse was now very close to Shalimar, but Emma's connection with her teammates was beginning to fade. A piece of cement flooring had cracked in the middle and fallen on top of Shalimar, trapping her in a small triangular space open on top where the broken concrete was only held together by bare rebar. Just as Jesse reached the woman, Emma's transmission to Jesse disappeared. It took too much effort to broadcast to the two and link them together.

Though she didn't have the strength to transmit, Emma could not help but receive psychic transmissions as long as she remained conscious. She sensed Jesse's feelings as he desperately searched through the uneven, unsettled terrain in near pitch-black water. When the sense of Shalimar's location became weaker and disappeared, he had begun to loose hope. Was she dead? There was only one person who could have shown him where to find Brennan and Shalimar. Had the signal leading him to the feral disappeared because Shalimar lost consciousness, or because Emma had? No longer with guidance, he continued looking in the general area where he remembered sensing her. He felt with his hands for a slanted slab of concrete, the memory of it from Shalimar's perspective still in his mind. Finally, glowing yellow eyes tipped of the woman's location. Emma felt Shalimar sense Jesse's smell approaching even in the frigid bay water. Jesse grabbed her arm, which was reaching out from between a crack in the metal reinforced floor. Shalimar was losing consciousness, long out of air, but her enhanced animal instinct of survival kept her going. Emma was relieved when Jesse grabbed Shal's hand, phased her through the cement and held her with his left arm as he kicked and swam with his right arm to the surface.

Having done all she could to help her friends, Emma rose again to take a breath of air. She knew that she would only be able to stay away for another minute or two. The cold water she was immersed in was her only hope. She was already experiencing hypothermia, which would preserve her body and reduce her oxygen needs. To increase her chances of being revivable, she would place herself in the deepest meditative trance she could, slowing down her mind to reduce its oxygen need even further, turning off all but the dimmest light of life. A normal human might survive an hour or more in this state. Emma hoped she might stretch that to five or six hours, which would make it possible that she could be rescued in time. Though she was confident in her powers, deep meditation might not assist her ability to survive a hypothermic state. Based on her experiences with deep meditation, she felt certain her body would know when to wake up as the New Mutant part of her mind subconsciously scanned its environment and determined that she was safe. It stood to reason that being aware and consciously trying to restart her systems could only aid those who recovered her body from its watery grave.

It might take days for them to recover her body and Emma doubted that she would ever see the sun again. Of course, the only alternative was to die now. There was one last thing she could to improve her chances.

Before going into her trance, Emma mustered the strength to send a burst transmission to Jesse, giving him her location, but warning him not to lose his own life in an impossible attempt to save hers. "Emma!" Jesse screamed. She felt his desire to go out and save her, but Jesse was already exhausted and frozen to the bone. If he had a little more strength, he would have tried to rescue her and most likely gone into hypothermia himself.

Emergency workers were beginning to arrive. As Emma entered her deep meditative trance, she could feel that calm determination to help as they took control of the scene. With one last breath from the pocket of trapped air she powered down most of her brain and reduced her metabolism to near zero. Her deep meditation, the lowered oxygen needs in a cold environment, and the unpredictable resilience of her New Mutant DNA were the only things standing between her and the afterlife.

II

An interminable time passed. Emma's dim awareness sensed a change in her environment. A tiny piece of fragile consciousness sensed other intelligences approaching and then the still water began to move. The building segment holding her body captive was lifted away and a diver pulled Emma to the surface very carefully and very gently, all the time keeping her body in a horizontal position. Though she knew when she reached the surface, her lungs did not instinctively draw breath and her heart did not beat. The rescue workers carefully floated her body to the shore, where they sank a rescue board under her and then lifter her straight up, still in a lying position. Emma's limp form was transferred from the water and placed on a gurney without removing her from the rescue board.

Emma knew that it could take several minutes to come out of a deep meditative trance, but she had never gone under so far for so long and also had no idea what complications the hypothermia might cause. She had read of people surviving for an hour with no life signs in cold water, but she wasn't a normal person. Her thoughts were very muddled and slow, but she was conscious, not in a cold-induced coma. Despite being ostensibly safe now, she was finding she could make no progress toward coming out of her catatonic state and, in fact, her dim window of consciousness was periodically blacking out. Maybe she was not as different as she thought. Two emergency medical technicians were focusing on her. Though her skin was mostly numb, she could still feel the dull sensation of a stethoscope placed to her chest. Mentally, she sensed their professional detachment suppressing their human empathy for a patient as they checked for her breath and heartbeat, but there were no vital signs. "She's gone," a voice proclaimed. Emma wanted to scream out that she was alive, but could do nothing. She had been submerged for at least three hours and she wasn't sure if anyone had ever been revived after so long, but they should at least try!

Emma heard Jesse's voice say her name. With all of her force of will, she tried to move a finger or open her eyes, but her mind was just a pinprick of life in an unresponsive body. If Adam had been there, he would have examined her more closely and seen that part of her still lived, but he was surely dead in the icy bay or already in a hospital for his injuries.

"Emma." It was Brennan's voice. He had survived.

"Brennan, she's dead," Jesse told her. Emma wanted to cry, but could not do that either.

"Emma! Let me see her!" Shalimar was trying to get past Brennan and Jesse and Emma wished she could just see her, even if it were for the last time, but her eyelids would not even flicker. She could sense the grief from all three, but especially from Shalimar. Emma remembered their kiss, but even that warmth was not enough to thaw her now.

There was a sensation of renewed movement as the gurney was moved away. She could feel the dead weight of her arm fall off to the side and her comlink ring slide from her finger. "Emma," Shalimar said again. Her arm was replaced to its prior position and Emma knew she was being loaded into a vehicle. She tried to touch Shalimar's mind, but the effort sent her into another blackout.

She became aware again a few minutes later and realized that her clothing was being cut from her body. Strange voices gave each other instructions regarding medical equipment, checking her airway and adjusting her so that they could remove her clothes. Even her boots were cut off, leaving her completely naked. "On the count of three, life. One. Two. Three," said a woman's voice. Next, she felt herself being lifted and when she was set back down, it was on soft, warm blankets. "Any vital signs?" More blankets were placed on top of her.

"No heartbeat, no breath." This was a man's voice.

"Give it a minute," said the woman. Emma could have told them the answer. She felt her hands and feet moved slightly. "No sign of frostbite."

"Still nothing," the man monitoring her vitals said. "Cardiac monitor is hooked up and shows nothing."

"Ventilate her for three minutes. How far are we from the plane?" asked the woman.

A second male voice answered from further away. Possibly the driver? "Fifteen minutes, tops."

With her awareness fading in and out, Emma had no idea how much time had passed since Naxcon fell. It seemed like forever. Even when conscious, she was imprisoned in her passive body. She could feel somewhat, but her nervous system would not transmit her commands. Her ears heard everything, her nose could smell and even her tongue could taste the residue of the bay water in her mouth. Though she could not open her eyes, they still detected differences in illumination through her lids. She felt air being pumped into her lungs, but she couldn't breathe on her own. They checked her again for any sign of life, but there was nothing.

"Get an esophageal probe in her and then ventilate again," the woman said. Emma felt gel pushed into her nose and then a thin tube inserted and snaked deep inside of her. "Her core temperature is fifty-five degrees."

"I have a heartbeat," the first man's voice said, "but it's very slow and erratic."

"I'm going to defibrillate," the woman said. Emma felt herself get zapped three times with the sounds of rubbing paddles and the calls to "clear" that she never expected would be focused on her.

"We lost the heartbeat," the man said.

"Are you sure it was there?" Emma sensed the tension between the two and the thoughts of the man who was doubting that he had really detected a heartbeat. "We need to get her temperature up into the eighties before we risk trying again. Monitor's still showing nothing. Let's do CPR." The two people took turns performing chest compressions and ventilating until the vehicle came to a stop. She was then lowed down and transported into what she had to assume was an aircraft. Emma only had the slightest sensation of rising into the air. It almost felt like the vertical takeoff of the Double Helix.

Onboard, in addition to CPR, Emma was given an intravenous tube of warm saline solution and air heated to about one hundred eight degrees was blown rapidly across her body. She was given humid and heated oxygen as chest compressions continued. There were now more consciousnesses with her. She could feel their minds as they tried to resuscitate her. "It's been forty minutes," the woman from the ground vehicle said. "I think she really is gone."

"No, she's alive. I can see her thoughts," said a new voice. Emma was suddenly scared. "Don't worry, we're friends." She shielded her thoughts. Whoever these people were, they were New Mutants and they had deceived Jesse, Shalimar and Brennan into thinking she was dead in order to take her away.

"Her heart's beating." Emma was pretty sure it was the same man from before. "I'm sure. Stop CPR."

"What's her core temperature?" the woman asked.

"Eighty-seven. Her pulse is not very steady."

"All right. We'll try another defibrillation series." Again she applied the paddles to Emma's chest, but this time, she could feel her heart start to beat regularly. Everyone could read the heart monitor and there was a cheer.

"She'll live?" the telepath asked.

"She's not out of danger yet, but things are looking better. This might be a world record for resuscitation after drowning." It was the woman's voice again. Some of the tension was gone. It seemed like a certain confidence was building in her and Emma took heart from this.

"I think the book might disqualify you if they found out your patient wasn't a normal human being." The voice was the first man from the ground.

"And that neither was her paramedic," said the woman. Just then, Emma found that she was able to open her eyes slightly. She saw dark hair, deep blue eyes and something else. Emma realized that defibrillation paddles had not been used on her. Electricity danced across the woman's hands. She blacked out again, but her heart continued to beat.

III

The New Mutant body is an amazing thing. Apart from the special abilities of ferals, elementals, psionics and moleculars, the Children of Genomex were faster, stronger, healthier and more resilient than the average person. Emma made an amazing recovery for having been trapped in icy water for so long. They had planned to perform a cardiopulmonary bypass and warm her blood outside of her body upon landing, but it turned out to be unnecessary. All of her internal organs recovered on their own and after spending the night in intensive care on a ventilator, she was placed in a standard hospital room.

But Emma could tell that this was no ordinary hospital. The doctors and nurses who tended to her did not wear badges or even nametags. No one would tell her where she was. She could only get simple answers about her condition. Though they reassured her that her temperature was ninety-eight point six, she frequently shivered and felt cold all of the time. After fitfully sleeping and waking for several hours, Emma's frustration and fear forced her to swing her legs over side of the bed and explore. She felt weak, but was able to stand. Emma realized that she was only dressed in a hospital gown that was open in the back.

Before she could hit the call button to ask for clothes, two people burst into the room. Emma recognized both of the black-clad figures. One was a woman her height, but extremely thin, perhaps ten or fifteen pounds lighter than her. The elemental had curly short brown hair, fair skin, a thin nose and a tiny beauty mark just above the left side of her lips. The other was a tall, handsome looking man of African descent. His hair was cut very short with tight curls evenly covering his head. He was the telepath from the plane who had recognized her consciousness. Electricity tipped the woman's fingers and a globe of green light hovered in front of the man's forehead. Emma instinctively created her own starburst of white light even though she was in no condition to fight.

The standoff lasted for a few seconds before Emma let the psionic energy dissipate. "I just want to know where I am, why I'm here, and who you people are."

"We are not at liberty to tell you," the woman said. "I can tell you that my name is Ara. This is Marcus. We do not mean you any harm. Remember, you would be dead had we not rescued you."

"And who do you work for?" Emma asked.

"You will learn eventually," Marcus said. "I can't imagine they ordered us to save you if they didn't have a purpose. Be patient and cooperate." For a moment he seemed distracted. He held up one hand on which Emma noticed he wore a ring that looked similar to her Mutant X comlink ring. Ara wore one too. Someone was speaking to Marcus, presumably through a hidden earpiece and he was responding via comlink. Emma listened carefully to the one side of the conversation she heard. "Sir? The monitors showed she got out of her bed so Agent Manson and I entered the room, while the other guards remained outside. She seems amenable at least to listen. Yes, sir."

"Your presence has been requested," Ara said. Apparently, she had been able to hear both sides of the conversation. "Do you feel up to a short walk?"

"I'd like some clothes," Emma said, gesturing toward her gown, which only extended half way down her thighs.

Ara Manson walked across the room to where there was a small bureau. From the top drawer, she pulled out a gray sweat suit, simple undergarments and white deck shoes. "Put these on. Do you need any help?"

Emma wiggled her fingers, but they still felt stiff and numb. "Maybe."

"Agent Angeles?" Ara said and the man left the room. Emma fumbled with the ties to her hospital gown, but couldn't get them undone, so Agent Manson helped her undress. Looking down at her naked body, Emma saw numerous cuts and bruises. She also noticed that all of her jewelry had been removed or lost. Her rings, toe ring and navel piercing were all missing. She felt her ears, but her earrings were gone too. With some difficulty, Ara helped her put on underwear and bra, shirt and pants, socks and shoes. Emma started to see stars and feel faint, but Agent Manson was able to catch her.

"Marcus, get in here," Ara called and the man stormed in expecting trouble, but then saw that his assistance was just needed to keep Emma upright. "Should we put her back in bed?"

"I don't think Anthony Gervais would appreciate the delay. Can you make it, Emma?" Marcus asked.

"I think so," she said, "with help." Emma was assisted into the hallway where she saw two more guards.

"This is Robert Maguire," Marcus said, indicating a short, stocky man with light brown skin and dark hair. His eyes glowed yellow momentarily and Emma knew him to be a feral. "And this is Maxwell Drummer." A tall man with sandy blond hair and dark brown eyes nodded his head to her and flickered invisible. These four must be a team, Emma thought, one of each type of mutant. Though she was in no condition to be a danger to anyone, the four agents escorted her through a series of gray corridors. For the most part, Emma was able to walk slowly unassisted, but occasionally she needed to put her weight on someone. She paid close attention to everything she saw and every feeling she felt. A few times she received images from her companions, people on the other sides of walls or the building itself. She needed information and allowed her mind to be as open as was safe to everything around her.

Eventually, they entered a heavy metal blast door that was opened with a retinal scan of two of the mutant agents. Inside, was a reception room, where four heavily armed soldiers waited. They were dressed all in black with headgear and masks making them indistinguishable from anyone else. Emma began to wonder if anyone here ever wore any color.

The five New Mutants took seats arranged along one wall. The soldiers stood still as statues until one stepped forward. "Emma DeLauro, you are to come with us. Marcus and Ara helped Emma stand and she was taken through a few more hallways and eventually to an office. The soldiers pushed her inside and a door slid closed behind her. A man sat in a chair behind a desk with two more chairs in front of it.

"Take a seat," he said. Emma slowly walked across the office and sat in a comfortable leather chair. "My name is Anthony Gervais. I have some questions for you and I'm sure you have some questions for me, but I will ask mine first. What do you know of the whereabouts of Adam Kane?"

"So, you rescued me to lead you to Adam?" Emma responded.

"It seems you don't understand the rules. Do you want this to be an interview or an interrogation?"

"An interrogation," Emma said. She launched a psionic blast across the desk at the man, but it never got there. A shimmering red force field absorbed the energy. Emma had thought her inability to read the man's mind was a result of the ordeal she had suffered through. Now she knew the true reason.

The man smiled and leaned forward. "Emma, we mean no harm to either you or Adam, but it is imperative that you assist us if you wish things to stay that way. This complex is fully prepared to deal with any New Mutant, even one as powerful as yourself. We are not enemies." Anthony Gervais sat back, intertwining his fingers in front of him with his elbows resting on the chair arms. "Let me show you something," he said. A hologram appeared floating above his desk. Emma recognized herself waiting for an interview session with Adam. It was the last one before the Naxcon incident. "Do you remember this?"

IV

Emma heard the sound of Adam's voice. "Emma has undergone another profound change since her encounter with the protocanth. I no longer feel that I enjoy her trust. Everything I have kept secret to protect Mutant X could be exposed at any time if Emma abandons her moral code and reaches into my mind. I need to find out what she already knows or suspects and how she intends to use the information. I am certain that she is aware of more of the big picture than the others. Eventually, she will be forced to choose between keeping my secrets and telling Shalimar, Jesse and Brennan. I don't think that I will win that decision. If presented in the wrong way, certain things I have done in my past could poison all four of them against me, but I need more time before I confess everything. The question is: How much more time do I have?"

Adam's image then came into view on the holographic projector. He sat across from her with his legs crossed, holding a pencil and a book of notes.

"These sessions are bullshit, Adam," Emma's hologram said.

"Why do you say that, Emma?" he asked.

"You act like this is therapeutic counseling, but it's really a debriefing to get information for your research and your agenda." Emma saw the suppressed anger on her own face and remembered her growing sense that Adam might betray them.

"The sessions do aid my research, but a large part of my studies has to do with stabilizing your mutations, so everything you tell me is beneficial to you and the others." She remembered Adam's defensiveness. He was hiding something…many things. "I am also concerned for you as your friend. I know that I often put you in dangerous situations. It is important to me that you are dealing well with the stress, the pressure, and the responsibility that I place on you. I care about all four of you as if you were my children."

"Would you experiment on your own children?" Emma accused.

"I treat you, I do not experiment on you," Adam said.

"Have you done anything to us without telling us? Have you administered any drugs or chemicals or electromagnetic radiation without informing us why you were doing it? Without knowing what result you might achieve?"

"Emma," he said simply, but didn't deny anything.

"When I first came here, I didn't know anything about computers. Thanks to Jesse's tutelage and a certain innate talent, my skills now surpass his. I've been through all of your encrypted medical files and have seen what you have been doing to us."

"That's impossible."

"No code is unbreakable. The computers here at Sanctuary can process a few trillion instructions per second. Eventually anyone supported by sufficient computing power could factor a key derived from an RSA algorithm. Time consuming? Yes. Impossible? No."

"I use sixteen kilobit encryption," Adam said.

"Thanks to my old friend Michelle Bigelow, I gained some insights into the silicon mind. We were connected when she died and a little of her imprinted itself on me."

"Even if you gained telecyber abilities from your friend, you couldn't access my files. The human brain may be more powerful than three dozen supercomputers and able to process over a hundred trillion instructions in a second, but a telecyber would die of old age before she could brute force my encryption. Michelle was only able to access less secure systems, which have since been upgraded. It has only been a year since Michelle died and besides, not every file uses the same encryption key. In that time, you could not have broken them all."

"I am not a telecyber," Emma's hologram said. "I don't possess Michelle's power, but when I was in her mind, trying to bring her back to humanity, I saw how she connected with machines. It opened my eyes to an ability I call cyberempathy. I can interact with computers as if they are organic minds."

"Computers speak to you?" Adam asked.

"No, it's more of a higher comprehension of their anorganic processes. I receive and read their electronic impulses just like I can sense the emotions or images from your mind by interpreting the combinations of synapses firing in your brain. What I do is very different than what a telecyber does. A telecyber can use her powers to connect with a computer on its level. Her brain becomes the most powerful member of a network, able to process information far faster than anything she comes in contact with. Her intelligence or sentience becomes an infinitely adaptable program able to perform anything from the simple act of typing letters onto a screen to acting as a virus and destroying or disrupting other computers."

"And you deal with computers differently," Adam prompted.

"Yes. On a very, very, extraordinarily primitive level, computers are intellects. Whereas a telecyber would have to transmit binary integers sequentially until she found the correct combination, I can send entire keys as single chunks just as easily as I could implant an image into your head," Emma said.

"Even so, it would take you forever."

"Alone, maybe," Emma said and smiled. "But what if I had a million computers to assist me more powerful than any computer man ever built."

Emma remembered watching realization spread across Adam's face as she watched it again in the hologram. "That's monstrous. How could you?"

"In my case, what people don't know won't hurt them. Can you say as much? I networked the intellects of the city, only utilizing the unused computing power of their brains. It works best at night when I have so many sleeping minds at my disposal." Emma hadn't needed to read his mind at that time to recognize the horror on his face.

"You use others without their knowing, you break into personal files, you hide your intrusions and yet claim you follow a moral code?"

"Emotions are personal. Thoughts are personal. Sacred. I would not scan your mind just as I would not read your diary. Accessing unused portions of the average citizen's brain does them no harm and does not touch their human essence. Their secrets are safe. Their thoughts and emotions are their own. As for your research, I feel the guinea pig has the right to know what the mad scientist is doing to her."

Emma remembered the emotional turmoil Adam felt during this interview session. His worst fears had not even scratched the surface. It was rare that she sensed him at a loss for what to do next.

"Adam, what happens when I turn twenty-five? What is an 'e-event'?"

"Don't you know?" Adam asked, disgust dripping from his tongue.

"I suspect. Almost every mutant in the database has an e-event date. Since your files were meant only for you, you did not notate every abbreviation or any other information you knew by heart. I could only learn that it is something you are trying to avoid."

Adam composed himself for a moment before responding. "It represents a major mutation event. You will undergo small mutations for the next few years, but at twenty-five, you will undergo an 'extreme event' that I cannot yet predict. Jesse will be the first one to reach this point."

"That's not the whole truth," Emma said in the holographic projection. It was still some time off. There were more pressing matters. "What is your agenda, Adam?"

"I've told all of you before," he said.

"Better living through controlling disease? You know what I am. Don't even try to lie. Remember that I've read your files."

They stared at one another in stony silence, before Adam finally said, "That is part of my agenda."

"A side effect," Emma responded not missing a beat.

"Emma, you know that everything I've ever done was intended for the betterment of mankind."

"The path to hell…," she said, beginning the old saw.

"I promise, when the time is right, I will tell you everything and I will tell Jess, Bren and Shal. Can I trust you to stay out of my mind until then? Can I trust you to keep what you know a secret?"

Emma's holographic image was silent for a moment. She looked down at the floor, considering, before meeting Adam's gaze. "For now. But if I ever feel your secrets are endangering any one of us, I will not hesitate to cross the line I've kept to until now."

"I would never let any of you come to harm if I could help it."

"You may not be able to help it. We deserve to know what we are really fighting for, especially if we might die." She paused a beat. "I sense you want to know how much time you have left?" Emma's image smiled. "No, I'm not scanning you. You're broadcasting. The answer is that your time is very, very short."

"Believe me, Emma, I keep my secrets for a reason."

"Because you are afraid of the Dominion?"

"You didn't get that from my research files. How much do you know?" Adam asked. Emma stood and walked out of the range of the holographic recorder, while Adam buried his face in his hands. The image disappeared.

V

"Where did you get that recording?" Emma asked Anthony Gervais.

"From Sanctuary. I am a member of the Dominion Council. Adam works for us. He sent us this recording to warn us of how close you were getting to the truth. Before the Naxcon incident, you were already scheduled for extraction from Mutant X."

"Adam was planning to get rid of me?"

Suddenly, Emma could sense the councilman's mind. "He wanted you reassigned. Of course, we can't know if it was to spy on us or to keep you from spying on him." He had lowered his force field and she knew that he wasn't lying. "All right. I've indulged you. Now, answer my question. Where is Adam Kane?"

"I don't know," Emma said. "The last contact I had with him was after the collapse of the Naxcon building. He was swimming toward shore. Despite the numbing cold of the water, his hip was in pain, possibly dislocated. Whether or not he made it to land and what happened next, I don't know. Within ten or fifteen minutes of that, I had lost consciousness."

"What do you suspect?"

"I wouldn't believe Adam dead until I saw the body and ran tests. Even then, I don't know if I would rule out all possibilities of him being alive. You want me to help you find him?" Emma asked.

"No. Mutant X will search for Adam," Gervais said.

"I am part of Mutant X," Emma said forcefully.

"Not anymore. You have many useful talents, but they make you unpredictable and dangerous. You will remain dead to them and to the rest of the world if you want to live."

"No!" Emma felt tears welling up in her eyes.

"If they know you are alive, they will look for you. A reunion is not in the best interests of the Dominion."

"How can I live, knowing my friends are in danger? Knowing I could help them and keep them safe?"

"If you try to rejoin them, you will die. If you do reach them, they will die too. Mutant X is a useful tool, but your presence makes it a dangerous wildcard. The goals of the Dominion are too important to be thrown off-track by an angry young woman and her friends. Do not become collateral damage in a game you do not understand."

Emma formed a starburst. It's pulsating glow caused shadows in the office to expand and contract. The Dominion Councilman did not raise his shield. Ultimately, he was right. She knew almost nothing and Brennan, Shalimar and Jesse knew less. There were too many layers for her to uncover. It would be selfish of her to put her desire to be reunited with her friends over their safety. She remembered that one sentence in Adam's research notes. _I made a deal with the devil and now the Dominion wants its due._ In that last interview, she had asked Adam about the Dominion, fishing for information. He did fear them. Emma knew she needed to find out why before she could rejoin Mutant X.

The bright glow disappeared from Emma's forehead and she asked, "What do you want of me?"

Anthony Gervais smiled. "First, I want you to meet your replacement, Lexa Pierce."

"Another psionic?" Emma asked.

"No. We objected to Adam's original recruiting of you, but eventually allowed it. We won't make the mistake of allowing another psionic into Mutant X." The councilman pressed a button hidden somewhere in the back of his desk. "Bring in Ms. Pierce and also Gamma Team." A minute or so passed before the door to the office opened and her four New Mutant guards from earlier entered the room along with a woman Emma had never seen before. She was tall with middle-length, straight dark hair. Overall, she was attractive, though she had small eyes, which she tried to enlarge by wearing too much eye makeup. It only made the feature stand out more, lending her a shifty, untrustworthy look. Of course, to be honest with herself, Emma knew she couldn't be objective when critiquing her replacement. She sensed the woman was here only reluctantly, which she had to admit was a good sign, given her own misgivings about the Dominion.

"All right, you got me here. What's this all about?" Lexa asked. She took a seat in the chair next to Emma, while the other mutants stood behind them.

"You will be returning to Mutant X," Gervais said.

Lexa grinned with half of her mouth. "You're kidding, right?"

Emma looked askance of the councilman. "Returning?"

"Who's strawberry shortcake?" Lexa looked her up and down and Emma felt a growing distaste for the woman.

"Emma DeLauro has left Mutant X. The other members assume her dead. You will not dissuade them from that idea." He turned to Emma. "Lexa was an earlier recruit of Adam's. It was during a time when Shalimar left Sanctuary after a falling out."

"That's a name I haven't heard in years," Lexa said. "So, Shalimar Fox the fearsome feral finally returned."

"Yes," Gervais said, still addressing Emma. "She returned soon after Ms. Pierce left Adam to join the Genetic Security Agent."

"You're going to send a GSA agent into Mutant X?" Emma asked, shocked.

"I've worked for everyone, that's why I'm in such high demand," Lexa responded. "Besides, I haven't taken the job yet."

"You don't have a choice," the councilman said, looking at her. "This one is obligatory." Emma noticed Lexa's snide, joking demeanor take on a more serious tone. "Once you have joined forces with Mutant X, you will assist them in finding Adam Kane."

"How did you lose him?" Lexa asked.

"Adam took advantage of a distraction created by Mason Eckhart."

"Mason does have that way about him. How do you know Adam isn't dead?" she asked.

"If he is, find the body and confirm it." He gestured toward Emma. "Ms. DeLauro claims he survived the initial catastrophe and was making his way toward safety the last time she saw him. I can't imagine Adam didn't make it. He's a survivor. In addition to Ms. Fox, Mutant X also includes a molecular named Jesse Kilmartin and an elemental named Brennan Mulwray."

"I don't believe they will just welcome a stranger into their midst. It will take some time to gain their trust," Lexa said.

"Time is of the essence. The council has calculated that a grand gesture might open the door for you. They are still loyal to Adam, but only from inertia. If you can convince them that you were not only someone Adam confided in and trusted, but someone who felt betrayed by him, you can gain their sympathy and cooperation, if not their trust. They will help you find him to either confirm or refute your claims. They will want answers. You know well enough what you can tell them and what you cannot. It will fuel their fire to find Kane and ask him what he's been hiding."

Lexa nodded. "So, what is this grand gesture?" she asked.

"Gamma Team will get you into Sanctuary, where Ms. DeLauro will give you full access to the facility and all of Adam's secure files. Right now, Jesse Kilmartin is attempting to break through the encryption to no effect. They need access to Adam's files to find him and this demonstration will be near irrefutable proof that you are who you say you are."

"Shalimar will know if she's an imposter, even if the others don't. She'll sense it," Emma warned. She turned to Lexa. "Don't try to lie to her."

"I'm familiar with ferals," Lexa said dismissively. "It's perfectly true that I was originally recruited for Mutant X and left Adam, because I didn't agree with some of his ideas. There are some things I shouldn't mention, but I won't have to lie outright. They will want direction and I'll give it to them. It will only be for a few days. Only until we find out what happened to Adam Kane. Right?" she asked.

"Yes, Lexa," the Dominion Councilman said. "It will only be a short-term assignment." Emma sensed that he was lying, but Lexa was no friend of hers.


	3. Limitations

3 – Limitations

I

Having given Emma DeLauro, Lexa Pierce and Gamma Team their orders, Dominion Councilman Anthony Gervais dismissed them. Four additional black-clad soldiers were visible as the six mutants returned to the reception area, presumably Lexa's escort. Emma felt a new wave of fatigue wash over her as they reached the outer office and was forced to sit down in one of the chairs along the left-hand wall. Marcus Angeles, the tall black psionic, retrieved a wheelchair that had been brought for her.

"I'll be fine, I don't need that," Emma protested.

"You just walked twenty feet and you had to sit down. We're heading for the hangar now and that's about ten times the distance you had to walk from your room." He smiled at her and let go of the chair's handles to offer her a hand up. Maxwell Drummer, the molecular, stepped up to hold the chair. Emma had to admit that she was not yet able to walk far unaided and reluctantly accepted the help.

Angeles was the de-facto leader of the Gammas. Emma could feel the respect his team had for him. Lexa tolerated the man, but seemed to be the type to never enjoy being led by anyone. Emma tried to imagine what kind of reaction Mutant X would have to the woman. Brennan would be very reluctant to accept her. With her Dominion contacts and information, Lexa would be put into the position of leader and Brennan would not like that one bit. The two would definitely butt heads. Shalimar would welcome Lexa and follow her if she sincerely tried to help the team. Jesse might be the easiest to win over, if only because she was his type. He always seemed to fall hardest for tall brunettes.

Gesturing toward Lexa, Emma asked Max, the Gamma Team Mutant who was pushing her wheelchair through the maze of gray hallways, "What is her power?"

"She can manipulate light, focus it to form a laser beam, expand it in a blinding flash or bend it around herself to become invisible."

"Similar to your power?" Emma asked.

"No, she appears invisible. I can slip into unused dimensions adjacent to our own. I truly disappear, undetectable by heat, smell, sound or sight. Of course, I don't have much of an offensive component, with the exception of surprise."

Emma tried to remember if she had lost the sense of the man's psyche when he had displayed his ability to disappear in the hallway when she first saw him. She was pretty sure she was still able to detect him, but saw no advantage to revealing this. "Would a bullet be able to strike you when you were invisible?" she asked.

"Matter persists in all of the dimensions I am able to access, but I can exist on a plane undetectable by animal or electronic means. You just aren't equipped to discern me just like you can't see microwaves or hear a dog whistle. The bullet would disappear once it penetrated me, but it would hit me. Fortunately, I haven't had that pleasure yet."

"Do you know her well?" Emma asked, getting back to the topic of Lexa.

"She has a certain reputation," Maxwell told her. Emma didn't like the way he put that.

"It's not nice to talk about someone behind her back," Lexa interjected. "I'm right here."

"I know," Emma said. "I'm just not sure that you should be." Emma knew a mind she could trust. She had been monitoring Lexa Pierce since they met and so far, she didn't like what she saw. Her friends in Mutant X wouldn't have the ability to see the selfishness, the ego, and the emotional distance in her that Emma saw.

Lexa gave her a sharp look. "If I can avoid having to be fished out of the drink, I'll already have one up on you, Red."

Marcus Angeles brought the group to a halt. "Trade barbs another time, ladies—after the mission."

Emma ignored the man. Before Lexa joined Mutant X, she had to know the consequences of betraying them. Emma met and held her eyes. "Even if I'm not with Adam, Shalimar, Jesse and Brennan, they are and always will be my family. If you hurt my friends or let them down in any way, I will come after you. The whole Dominion couldn't stop me from avenging them."

"I'll be sure to listen out for the sound of approaching wheels." Lexa held her hands a foot apart from each other and ball of concentrated light formed. Emma and Gamma Team slammed their eyelids shut as the brightness blinded them. "You couldn't even get near me," Lexa said, feeling smug. She laughed and released the sunburst of focused light, but it didn't dissipate. Instead, the light grew, becoming brighter and hotter. Panic started to set. She couldn't get control of her powers. She watched her skin turn red and then begin to char. Still the light grew, searing her eyes. Her hair and clothes ignited and she screamed in terror as her whole body was engulfed in flame. She dropped to the ground and rolled in an attempt to smother the fire, but it was no use. The tiny star she had created continued to burn her, consuming her body. The pain was everywhere.

"Stop this!" It was Marcus's voice again. Emma released her hold on Lexa's mind. The woman whimpering on the floor of the hallway slowly came to realize that none of it was real. Robert Maguire and Ara Manson helped her stand up. The bright white light that was still burned into their retinas tempered their sympathy for Lexa. They didn't know what Emma had placed in Lexa's head, but the raw terror had touched all of them. Emma could feel their fear. No one would take her lightly now and they had only seen the merest fraction of her abilities.

"That was just a warning. Always remember it," Emma said. A shaken Lexa didn't respond, but the telempath knew she understood. It would give the woman something to think about if she ever thought to betray Emma's family.

The three men and three women continued to the hangar without further incident. There were a number of aircraft similar to the Double Helix as well as a dozen black helicopters. All were armed with guns and missiles. They boarded one of the vertical take-off planes and, after a quick pre-flight check, left the hangar for the open sky. Through the cockpit window, Emma could see that the complex where she had been was located in the middle of nowhere: nothing but barren desolation for miles with only a few dirt roads breaking up the otherwise unadulterated natural landscape. In a way, Emma was happy to be returning to Stormking Mountain, but it would no longer be a home. She couldn't even say goodbye to the ones she loved. Seeing them again would be bittersweet and Emma concentrated on preparing her emotions for what she might face during their incursion into Sanctuary.

II

The aircraft touched down in stealth mode on the beach at the base of the mountain. Though Emma had rested on the flight, she was still weary. She put her arms around the shoulders of Maguire and Drummer, who helped her walk across the sand and start climbing the rocks. Angeles had the point while Pierce and Manson took up the rear.

At the base of the tall cliff that rose from the rocky shore, Emma had them stop. She pressed her face against the cold stone and reached out with her mind to her friends. Jesse was frustrated, trying to get past Adam's encryption. Brennan was waiting impatiently, knowing he couldn't do anything to help and feeling useless. Shalimar was too wrapped in grief to pay much attention to the other two. Emma blinked in surprise when she looked into the feral's mind. Shal was thinking back to that picnic on the mountain a few months after Emma joined Mutant X. She could see that Shalimar had been thinking about that day for quite some time, perhaps since she first saw the stretcher after the disaster at Naxcon. It made sense that it would be one of Shalimar's most poignant memories of her. Emma had shared her own happiness and personal perception of being joined into the Mutant X family. There was only one moment between them that was more intimate. The kiss. Her memory of Shalimar's lips pressed to hers bled through the connection and Emma could feel the feral's thoughts change from the communal happiness of the picnic to the carnal desire of the kiss. Emma broke the connection, breathless, not only from the physical exertion of the climb.

"All three of them are in there working on breaking into Adam's files," Emma said.

"Let's keep going," Angeles ordered.

It wasn't far from the base of the cliff to one of the ground entrances into Sanctuary. Usually, the team would use the hangar entrance with the Helix, or the ground vehicle entrance, but there were times they would head out to train or just spend time by the water. The base also had four emergency exits, but these would be much more difficult to penetrate without detection.

Emma used her own password to enter Sanctuary. Once she got to a computer console, she could erase all trace of her entry. She kept a part of her mind focused on her friends, lest they notice her entrance or start coming their way. Though weak, when they were into the main part of the Mutant X base, Emma took the lead. Quietly, the six intruders made their way to Emma's room, where she closed the door behind them. Next to her bed was a cardboard box with some of her personal effects and photo albums. Emma reached down, touching one of the albums and immediately got a hit off of it. Shalimar had been looking through these photographs just a few hours ago. Tears welled up in Emma's eyes, but she forced them back and sat at her computer.

"It's possible Adam changed the password since I cracked it," Emma warned. "We might have to go to plan B." She started typing. Two minutes later, a face appeared on her screen.

"Adam," Lexa said.

"It's just a recording," Emma told her.

"Emma," Adam's image said, "I haven't tried to lock you out of the system, because I do not want to further break your trust. Please, know that I would never do anything to endanger you or the team unless it was truly necessary. The testing, or experimenting as you termed it, has always been about saving your lives. All New Mutants mutate in a predictable—," Emma cut off the recording and saved it to a flash drive. There wasn't time and the message was personal. She was into the system.

"The password still works. How good's your memory or should I write it out for you?" Emma asked.

How long of a password are we talking about here?" Lexa asked.

"A hundred words," Emma answered.

Lexa dropped her jaw and raised her eyebrows. "Words?"

"Well, not really words, but character groupings," Emma said. "Not all visible."

"Can't you just change it to something simple like L-E-X-A?"

"Jesse would know immediately that Adam would never have a four letter, visible character, alphabetic password, especially one that was a common name. Anyone could crack that in less than a second with a basic shareware program."

"But it would have a dramatic effect," Lexa contended, arcing both hand up over her shoulders with her palms face-up, bending her right knee in front of her left knee in a gesture used by a stage performer upon completing a great feat.

"It will get you locked up in a holding cell," Emma retorted.

"I can take care of myself. Besides, they're too upset right now to question something like that. If the password works, why would they even care? Just do it," Lexa said.

"I agree, just do it. The longer we stay here the better the chance we get discovered," Marcus said.

"We'll see," Emma said, skeptical. She changed the password.

"All right, Emma," Marcus instructed, "I want you to go with Lexa when she makes her introduction. Maxwell will go with you to keep you out of sight. Your job will be to smooth things out if Lexa runs into any problems. Got it?"

Emma just nodded and did what he said. If it worked, it worked. Questions would come later and that was Lexa's problem. Emma deleted all traces of her activity and of their incursion into sanctuary, before pocketing the USB drive and slowly rising to her feet.

"They are at the main computer terminal," Emma said, instructing Lexa. "When you leave my room, turn left—"

"I know the way," Lexa interrupted her.

"We'll wait here," Angeles said, indicating himself, Maguire and Manson, "while you make contact, Lexa. Max, you make sure our little redhead doesn't try to communicate with anyone she shouldn't."

"You couldn't stop me if you wanted to," Emma told them. She smiled. "Don't worry, I'm sure the Dominion Council would not have sent me on this mission if there was any thought that I would break faith. Councilman Gervais was clear with his threats."

Angeles turned again to Drummer. "Like I said, watch her. Now go."

Lexa led the way through Sanctuary. The Gamma molecular took Emma's hand and folded her into another dimension, while Lexa bent light around herself, disappearing from their view. Maxwell and Emma found an observation point while Lexa climbed the stairs to the upper level overlooking the main computer room. Emma felt a shiver run down her spine as she saw Brennan and Shalimar again and when Jesse spoke, it was like a voice from the grave, even though it was she who had died.

"Damn it, this is a waste of time," Jesse said. "Even if we wanted to give Eckhart what he wanted, the system would just carve it up into literally millions of potential passwords."

"But there's got to be some sort of backdoor?" Shalimar suggested. She stood up from where she had been lounging on a tabletop.

"No. The system would sense the intrusion in seconds. If it senses that the intrusion is aggressive enough it will wipe the drive. We'll be left with no useable data at all." Jesse was moving back and fourth between computer terminals, trying different ways to access the system. He brushed Brennan aside from where he was standing at another computer screen

"Well, maybe there's another way to the information. I mean, maybe he shared it with somebody," Shalimar said. She walked over to join them.

"Yeah, um, have you ever known Adam to share information?" Brennan asked sarcastically.

"Let's face it guys, we're screwed," Jesse said fatalistically.

"Wow, you guys give up easy, don't you?" Lexa said. Emma groaned and Max elbowed her. Lexa revealed herself, walking toward them from above, a glowing figure quickly transforming into her visible state. Jesse would definitely consider this a pleasant surprise considering Lexa was wearing long black pants and a glossy, sleeveless, synthetic leather top that zipped in the middle, leaving her belly button and cleavage exposed.

"Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?" Brennan asked. They all looked up at the strange intruder until Lexa disappeared again. "Jess, what's going on?"

"She controls light. She's bending it around her." Jesse said, looking around for any trace.

"She still gives off heat. You might be able to fool my friends, but I can see you day or night," Shalimar said, homing in on the woman where she leaned against a support column.

"Then here's a little day for ya'," Lexa said. A blinding flash of bright white light filled the room. Emma and Maxwell shut their eyes against it as well. "Can we consider the introductions made and just get on with it?"

"What is the 'it' that you want?" Jesse asked.

"What is the 'it' that I want?" Lexa considered her answer. "Hmm, to be back having dinner with a delectable painter named Marco on the Italian Riviera. But unfortunately I was called back here. See, Adam Kane's disappearance has worried a number of powerful people and they asked me to become involved in his return."

"Why you?" Shalimar asked. Emma sensed that Jesse, Brennan and Shalimar were wary, but willing to listen. They were out of ideas and this was at least distracting them from their frustration.

"Because I have a unique understanding of the situation. Also, Adam and I have a special relationship," Lexa responded. Emma was amazed by the cocky, arrogant, confidence of the woman. She was not emotionally affected at all by stepping into a potentially dangerous situation.

"Bull. We've never even heard of you," Brennan said.

"And that means?" Lexa replied.

"We'd know," Shalimar said.

"If you knew Adam as well as you say you do, you'd know he doesn't share all of the information with any one person," Lexa said. She paused and everyone had to agree that there was a lot Adam never told them, but might have told others.

"Why should we believe any of this?" Jesse asked.

"You want to get into Adam's files. You'd have a better chance if you knew his password." She typed on the keyboard. "My name, L-E-X-A," she said. "So, find the information you need and you better be fast. The connections always shut you out after twenty minutes. Now there's something important I gotta' do." Lexa left the room.

"She's in," Jesse said as he worked at the computer terminal. Shalimar and Brennan followed strange new woman.

Maxwell Drummer gave the signal to leave and Emma reluctantly complied, her eyes lingering on every detail of her erstwhile home. They rejoined the rest of Gamma Team and departed Sanctuary.

III

Upon returning to the Dominion's remote headquarters, Emma was brought back to the room where she had originally awakened. She lay down and fell instantly into a deep sleep. Though there was no clock in the room, she was sure a full day had passed before she awoke. As soon as she sat up, Marcus Angeles entered the room.

"Still on guard duty?" Emma asked him.

"As long as you remain our guest," he said. He had a very good smile, bright white teeth contrasting nicely with his dark skin.

Emma smiled at him. "I would like a shower, a change of clothes, breakfast and access to a computer, in that order."

"Ara put some more clothes in the dresser over there. Here," he opened a door to his right, "is a bathroom complete with shower. Everything you need should be in there. Should I have Ara come in here to help you?"

"No, I feel much stronger now, if a bit stiff." Emma rubbed her arms and legs as she stretched in bed.

"Breakfast, I cannot offer you at this time. We can all go to the galley for dinner, however." He smiled again at this. "The computer we can worry about once your stomach has been tended to."

"Fair enough." Regretting leaving the warmth of the bed, Emma swung her legs over the side and walked over to the dresser to see what clothes had been selected for her. Marcus Angeles left the room, closing the door behind him.

Emma showered and dressed in a thick black fleece shirt and pants. They fit her snuggly and were very warm for which she was grateful. Thick wool socks and short black boots completed the outfit. The Dominion had also returned her jewelry, including a new comlink ring to replace the Mutant X one she had lost.

"I'm ready," she said into the ring. This time it was Robert Maguire, the feral, who opened the door. As Emma stepped through the door, she saw across the hallway that the other three Gammas were leaving a room with four bunks and she was glad that her guards had not been sleeping on the benches in the hall.

They all went together through the vast complex to the cafeteria. Emma felt a little bit fatigued, but made it all the way under her own power. When she took a bite of the somewhat tough pork they served her, she could not swallow it. Her throat clenched and began to ache. She couldn't remember the last time she ate solid food and hadn't realized how starved she was. They had given her a Meal-Ready-to-Eat on the plane, but at that time the thought of food had made her gag. This, however, wasn't a mental response. It was physical. A tightness formed in her chest and it was with the greatest of difficulty that she was able to hide it from the Gammas. She did not want to show any more signs of weakness. By breaking up tiny pieces in her mouth, she was slowly able to get the first bite down. After a rest and drinking some juice, she carefully took another, smaller piece of meat. Her stomach gradually got used to the idea of eating again and she was soon fine to complete the meal.

When Emma returned to her room, a laptop computer was waiting on the nightstand. She brought it to a chair in the corner of the room by the dresser and let her mind connect with its CPU. Compared to Sanctuary's computers, it was little more than a calculator, but her only intention was to disable any monitoring devices inside that might record and transmit her keystrokes and any data she viewed. After several minutes, she was confident the computer had been rendered safe and plugged in the USB drive with Adam's message. She would watch it through her link with the computer, so that none of the monitoring devices in the room would be able to see or hear it. She continued the message where she had cut it off.

"The testing, or experimenting as you termed it, has always been about saving your lives. All New Mutants mutate in a predictable pattern. With each new level of mutation comes greater power, but also greater instability. Eventually, that instability reaches the point where the mind and body can no longer contain the New Mutant forces. The result is a death similar to Gabriel Ashlocke's. The entire genetic structure comes apart and the mutant is destroyed by his or her own power."

"Unfortunately, Emma, you are the most powerful member of Mutant X and unless a treatment can be found, you will die by the time you are twenty-five. You will not, however be the first. Jesse is the second most powerful, but since he is seven years older than you, he will hit his expiration date first. That is why these experiments are so important. Every day, I feel the guilt of what my work with Genomex has wrought and everything I have worked for since Incident X has been an attempt to give you and all New Mutants the lives you deserve."

"It may have been a mistake to hide the existence of the Dominion from you and the others, but really there is little I can tell you about them. They have been a leading power working to steer the development of technology for many years. The Bible says: 'Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have Dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."' The application of this idea is at the heart of the Dominion. I believe the organization traces its roots to the establishment of the Rule of Saint Benedict in 529 A.D., but it may go back further. The Rule attempts to balance individual zeal and formulaic institutionalism. Although originally intended for a community of monks, the Dominion has taken it for their own and applied it to all mankind. Their goals are to establish order; to understand and control the communal nature of human beings; and to provide them with a guiding hand to raise the level of all individuals and thereby all of humanity to the ultimate fulfillment of our species. They seek human perfection, to use all of the resources of the Earth to make Man into God."

"Genomex was part of that and their work continues at hundreds of other sites. Eckhart had succeeded far beyond the Dominion's expectations and it was his break with the Dominion that led to his downfall. The Dominion helped me leave Mason, they funded Mutant X, and their spies and saboteurs derailed all attempts by Eckhart to follow his own path. I have no delusions that the same wouldn't happen to me were I to oppose them. Be wary with this knowledge, Emma, and hold it close. There is no way to know what activities might escape the Dominion if any do at all."

Emma deleted all traces of Adam's message. She stood up from the computer and walked to the bed, where she lay down and stared at the ceiling. She laughed. Her life expectancy was shorter than most death row inmates. Adam hadn't given her a date, but it hardly mattered. Maybe she only had two years to live. At twenty-two, Emma DeLauro's days were numbered and she was all alone in the world.

IV

"Ms. Perkins, tell me a little about your cooking experience," Michael Alonso said. Emma had been surprised to be called back for an interview. After several days of dropping off resumes and filling out applications, she had realized that she was not well prepared to rejoin the legitimate workforce. Her Dominion biography gave her employment references ranging from data entry to physical fitness instructor, but there was nothing applicable to her new chosen profession. She wished they had given her a degree in the culinary arts, but then her ignorance of professional cooking would be even more glaring. Emma had vastly underestimated the knowledge that was necessary to work in an upscale restaurant.

"I've cooked all of my life," Emma said, "even when I was a little girl. Neither of my parents was particularly domestic. I loved creating new dishes, experimenting with spices, new meats and vegetables I had never tried before. I used to make things for my friends almost every day. I guess I find a certain peace and calm when I am in the kitchen. Coordinating all of the tasks necessary to pull off a successful meal keeps my mind focused. I am not bothered by the world at large. I also enjoy watching people when they discover a new taste, or a new combination of flavors; when someone finds a new favorite food and I know I was the one who gave it to them. For me, emotion is part of everything I do and that's why being a chef is perfect, because good food always brings pleasure."

Emma nervously ran her fingers through her red hair, which was now streaked with blond. It was an honest answer and she hoped her enthusiasm would shine through. She had considered getting a job at a chain restaurant, but she was always brought back to the shortness of time. Slaving away at T.G.I. Friday's would not give her the same sense of satisfaction, that preparing fine cuisine for a discriminating clientele would. Making the meals on corporate menus might be a stepping-stone if she had more time. Maybe she could even get that degree in the culinary arts, but in three years, (or would it be just two?) if Adam didn't find a cure, she would die. If Adam could even be found. If he was alive. Ifs dominated her life.

The Dominion had assigned her to become a part of a sleeper cell in Los Angeles. In order to blend into the population, she was told to find a job. Working as a chef came immediately to mind. It was what she had been considering before that day she met Brennan and crossed paths with Genomex and Mutant X. Unfortunately, she did not even know the vocabulary of the job and was told time and time again that she could only start at the server or bussing level. She needed to find somewhere that would teach her what she needed to know and hoped this would be her chance.

"Working in a restaurant is much more than simply following a recipe," her interviewer was saying. "Anyone can measure out ingredients, set timers and follow instructions. A kitchen has to work as a team. It's like an orchestra. Everyone has to play the right notes at the right time or it all goes wrong. We cater to affluent business people, professional athletes, celebrities and socialites. You must be fast and you must be perfect. We just can't have an inexperienced person cooking for our valued club members."

"Then why did you call me back?" Emma asked.

"On your application, you wrote that you hope to become a chef de cuisine?" he said, raising his voice in a question at the end.

"Yes. It's what I've always wanted to be," Emma replied.

"So why have you never worked in the food industry before?" he asked, glancing at her resume as if he might now find some omission.

"I guess life always seemed to pull me in other directions, but now I am free of all of those obligations and complications. I am at a point where I am free to pursue my own dreams. No one is depending on me except me. I want to dedicate myself fully to this. I want to create my own dishes some day, my own menu."

"So why not go to school to become a chef?" Mr. Alonso asked.

"I don't have the money and I don't want to spend the time. Besides, I've found that I learn much better by doing. A few years ago, I knew nothing about computers. A friend of mine got me to start using one and now I'm a computer wiz. I realize that cooking at home is different than working as a chef at a restaurant, but I still think there is value in my experience. I know how to work with a team. I know how to take and give orders. I work hard and I don't complain. If you hire me, I will be a model employee." Emma was afraid it was starting to sound a little too much like begging, but she sensed that Mr. Alonso did not view her plea negatively. It was so tempting to use her powers to get the job, but Emma wanted to do this without meddling in anyone's mind.

"I'll be frank with you, Lara. You are not qualified for the job you originally applied for. We can't put you on the line." It was another rejection after all.

"You pretty much said that before," Emma said, but she wasn't being dismissed. "But you are offering me something else…?" she asked.

"Yes. We pride ourselves, not only on the food we serve, but also on the chefs who have gotten their start here. If you are willing to put in long hours for relatively low pay, we have an apprenticeship program that lasts four months. You would be trained on every station until you were competent at each: a month in the butcher shop, a month in the garde manger, another in the hot kitchen and finally a month in the bakery. It is basically a crash course in the culinary arts. If you survive, we will know that you have to skills to work the line, maybe even to rise to sous chef one day. Do you think that is something you would be interested in?"

Emma's eyes lit up. "Yes, it's exactly the type of opportunity I was hoping for."

"You could end up working eighty hour weeks," Mr. Alonso said. "Remember, you will be a full time employee as well as a full time student all in the same place. You will live here more than in your own home. Ask yourself honestly if you can handle what I am describing to you. The chefs teaching you may eject you from the program at any time. Once you are out, you are out and we will waste no more time with you. Do you understand?"

"I fully understand. It's what I want and I am willing to make the sacrifice," Emma insisted. I don't have a life anyway, she thought. I'm dead to everyone that matters.

"All right. I have to talk it over with the executive chef and he will probably want to meet you, but I feel I can welcome you to the staff, Lara." They both stood and Emma's bright smile beamed.

V

"Who's that? She's looking pretty fine," John, one of the cooks, said. Emma turned and saw him pointing through the kitchen window, out toward the dining area.

"Aww, man. We're talking dyke-city," Jamiel said. "You ain't gettin' any of that without some major surgery."

Emma, overhearing the conversation, walked over to join them. She looked out over the dining room. "Whom are you guys talking about?" she asked, looking back and forth between the two line cooks. There hadn't been any resentment when she was promoted to sous chef ahead of all those who were already employed at the club when she was hired. In the program, she had worked in every part of the kitchen. Everyone considered her the hardest working, smartest, and sweetest person who had every worked there. They knew her knowledge was extensive and her abilities unmatched. She remembered everything she was told and was friendly to everyone she met. Although Emma could be tough as nails when necessary, she was the person to whom the whole staff turned with their problems. She was both one of the guys and one of the gals; trusted by management and friends with everyone: busser, dishwasher, server and the kitchen staff. Rather than resent her promotion, her co-workers had thrown a party that lasted until it was time to groggily prepare breakfast the next day.

"See that brunette in the white tennis outfit? She's just about to sit down?" Jamiel pointed. The staff had quickly found out that Emma was as interested in the women who came into the club as the men were. Fortunately, they all accepted her lifestyle, though sometimes the guys went a little too far in their evaluations of the female patronage when she was the only woman on the shift. They did not bother to tone down their comments at all.

Emma located where Jamiel was pointing. "Yeah, I see her." Dana turned away from them and sat down. She was attractive—average height, very fit, with a fetching little mole on the side of her chin. "What makes you think she's gay?" Emma asked.

"Everyone knows, except John here and I guess you," he answered.

"How do they know? Is she out?" Emma asked.

"No, but everyone knows. Lara, you should have been here when they named her to the Davis Cup team about a year ago. She shows up with her mixed doubles partner at a banquet they held. I guess she was pretending they were together or something, but that guy wasn't even trying to fool anyone. He was flirting with the busboys and male wait staff all night. It was like Ellen DeGeneres trying to act straight by bringing Elton John to a party." Jamiel started laughing and John joined in. Emma brushed off the comment.

"So," she asked, smiling, " what's her name?"

"Dana Fairbanks," Jamiel told her. "She your type?" he asked. Emma immediately saw in both of their minds that they were already imagining them together and sighed, shaking her head.

"No?" There was some disappointment in John's voice.

"I was shaking my head, because I can only imagine what thoughts are going through those twisted minds of yours." She smiled. There was no malice in their thoughts, only normal sexual interest. "Actually, maybe I can cook something up to send to her table. Management might not approve of my hitting on a guest."

"C'mon, I do it all the time," Jamiel said. "We're always here. Where else are we going to meet anyone? You aren't attached are you?"

"Nope, nothing since before I came to work here," Emma said.

"Then go for it," John encouraged.

"All right," Emma said, "I'll prepare something for her, okay?" Emma considered the possibilities. "It'll have to be something light. Something healthy for an athlete." She decided and began her preparations, settling on grilled vegetables on skewers with two dipping sauces and a few uncooked vegetables as garnish that would also go well with the rest. Afraid Dana might leave, she quickly created the small dish, conscious of the fact that the tennis player had eaten something already. She was careful to make all of the grill lines perfect on the broccoli, cauliflower, squash and other vegetables so that the presentation could have maximum impact.

Emma brought the plate to Thomas, one a skinny waiter with blond hair. He was a bit surly and disinterested, but better that than someone who would giggle and embarrass both her and Dana. "Take this out to Ms. Dana Fairbanks over there," Emma pointed her out in the dining area. "If she asks, you can let her know it's from me." Emma composed herself into a serious workaday attitude and only watched the food delivery surreptitiously. Thomas went to her table, took away the plate she had just finished and placed Emma's meal on the table. She saw John say a few words to her and return to the kitchen. Emma was careful to keep her neutral expression and was pleased that Dana's reactions were very positive when she turned around a few times to look at the her, before enjoying the veggies.

Thomas came up to Emma in the kitchen. "She thinks you are the soup chef," he said.

"Soup chef," Emma asked. "That's so cute." She smiled.

The pattern continued for several days. Dana would frequently make her way into the club restaurant and order a drink or light appetizer and Emma would send her something gratis. Emma had never courted a woman like this before. Of course, she was hardly the woman today that she was a few years ago. Back then she had no cares and all of her life ahead of her. Now, time was so very precious and the weight of her concern, her fear, for the people she loved, for her team, threatened to bring her down into a deep depression nearly every day.

At times, Emma wondered if she were wrong to pursue a relationship, knowing that the Dominion could call on her any day, at any time. What if her other identity endangered Dana? Emma was considering all of this as she walked into the locker room to change her jacket for the second time that day. Suddenly, Emma sensed Dana's presence and came to a stop to collect herself. She had to be calm and not give anything away. She warned herself against escalating things until she was sure of how far they could go. Once ready, she walked around the bank of lockers to where Dana was lying down on a bench, her hands wrapped up in a towel resting on her stomach.

"Hey," Emma said, coming around the corner. "You okay?"

Dana sat up, facing away from her. She was sweaty and incredibly sexy, with her hair pulled back in an unkempt ponytail, and wearing a little white polo shirt and short tennis skirt. "Uh…I'm fine…fine." Emma took off her apron and began undoing her white-with-blue-trim chef's jacket. "That was my agent. He uh…he just told me Subaru might want to use me for an ad campaign, so they're going to watch me train tomorrow." Emma had taken off her jacket and was only wearing a tight sleeveless t-shirt.

"Yeah?" Emma said as Dana looked around at her and then looked immediately away again.

"Which is so cool," Dana said.

"That's…that's so exciting." Emma packed her dirty clothes in her locker.

"Yeah…yeah it is. It is…kind of…. I mean, you know, I can't mess up. So…." Dana trailed off, unsure of what to say.

"I'm sure you won't," Emma reassured her. She wished she could see Dana's face, but the woman was so incredibly nervous. "Um, you can turn around now. My jacket's back on." Dana looked back at her quickly with a little laugh and saw that Emma was fully dressed again. "My job is so messy, I have to change, like three times a day."

"Yeah?" Dana said. "You always look nice when I see you." Emma turned back toward her at that and the smile on her face went back to nervousness. "I mean…I mean you never look dirty," Dana said with a roll of the eyes and Emma couldn't help but smile at her discomfiture, "when I see you," she finished weakly. "I gotta' go. I hafta'…I have to go."

Emma knew she should let Dana walk away, but in a split second decision, she said: "Listen, why," Emma rested her hands on her hips, "…why don't you come by later? I'll send something down for you."

Their eyes met for a few moments before Dana said, "Okay, yeah."

"Great," Emma said and smiled.

"Thank-you," Dana said. "Bye."

"Bye." Emma watched as Dana disappeared around a row of lockers. A second later, Dana snapped and turned around, returning to pick up her bag and they said "Bye" to one another again. Emma finished up with her locker and turned the key to lock it. There was no harm in making a friend. So far, there was nothing more to it than that.


	4. Loyalties

4 – Loyalties

I

An hour after their meeting in the locker room, Dana came up to the restaurant and Emma waved to her. She sent her a light meal consisting of angel hair pasta and a small piece of grilled chicken with a sauce made from red currant, cranberry, Worcestershire, and brown sugar, all over a bed of baby spinach leaves. After the meal, Dana came to the kitchen window.

"Thanks, it was really great," she said.

"I'm really glad you enjoyed it," Emma said, smiling.

"Well, uh, I gotta'…. Well, bye." Dana raised up her right hand in a short wave, turned and quickly walked out of the dining room, looking back over her shoulder twice.

After her shift, as she walked up the steps in front of her apartment and let herself into the lobby, Emma felt happy and content with her life for the first time since being taken away from Mutant X. After a short walk past the elevators, she entered the stairwell and bounded up flight after flight. She had promised herself to avoid using the elevators, if possible, even though she was on the fifth floor. Without her exercise sessions with Shalimar, she wanted to take every opportunity that presented itself for physical exertion. Some day she might need her body as well as her mind and didn't want to let herself get out of shape. As she walked down the central hallway toward her apartment, thinking all the while about one Miss Dana Fairbanks, the smile fell off of her face and she slowed her approach. Someone was inside. There was anger, resentment, and frustration. The emotions were barely detectable as the person was attempting to suppress them with an ability beyond that of a normal human. Emma tried the knob. Her apartment was unlocked. She swung the door open and allowed a pulsating light of psionic energy to form and hover before her brow. Standing on the other side of the hanging beads that separated her entryway from her kitchenette was the Dominion agent Marcus Angeles, dressed in a dark business suit. A man she had never seen before was shackled at the ankles eating a bowl of cereal over her sink. Try as she might, she could not detect any emotions from the second man.

"Where's the rest of the team?" Emma asked, not backing down from her threatening posture.

"Nearby," Angeles said. "We have a little problem that your special abilities may help remedy." The other man in her kitchen was very skinny and incredibly pale. He stood perhaps five feet tall and had a shock of red hair, a smattering of freckles and ice blue eyes. His clothing was non-descript business casual khakis and a blue polo shirt. Marcus took the cereal bowl away from the man who scooped out two last spoonfuls before the contents were dumped down the drain.

"Great, but who is he and why is he in my kitchen?" Emma could guess, but she wasn't planning to volunteer any services beyond the bare minimum requested.

"This," Marcus took the man's spoon and somewhat roughly twisted him around to face Emma, "is the problem. Say 'hello' to the pretty lady." The small man didn't say anything and just stared at the floor.

"What's his power?" Emma asked. Definitely a psionic, she thought. Telecyber, maybe? Though there was no emotion, there was thought—alien, machine-like thought.

"He's an information processing unit and a database. The Dominion believes he may hold a warehouse of secure information that escaped from Genomex when Gabriel Ashlocke took their headquarters. We tracked him down about a year ago."

"Genomex made a human computer?" Emma asked.

"Better. The human mind is far more complex than any computer and the human body is self-propelling. It can be fueled easily in the field and cannot be hacked. They can also tackle problems you could never phrase to a computer; that require a sentient understanding of the problem."

"And you haven't gotten a peep out of him since you caught him?"

"All of the information in his brain is locked up and encrypted. Trying to force his mind open with neural reconstruction might trigger an aneurysm and we could lose the data forever. Some of our best people have tried to open his mental vault psionically, medically and pharmaceutically." Angeles slapped the man on the side of the head. Emma winced. "Why not talk to us? Is your life worth so little to you?"

"Why do that? He's not afraid of you and I think he doesn't even feel pain," Emma said.

"But it makes me feel better and if he doesn't feel pain, then it's no discomfort to him." Emma glared at the telepath. "Get the information out of him or he's in for a whole lot worse."

"Has he already been through worse?" Based on what Emma had seen of their operation, she had no reason to believe that the Dominion would be above torture.

"Yes, but not too much. It proved ineffectual."

"Are there others like him?" Emma asked.

"Sorry, classified," Marcus said, smirking.

"Do you really need my help or is this a loyalty test?"

"There isn't enough confidence in your loyalty at this time to bother testing it, but lack of cooperation cannot be in your best interest." Marcus shoved the little man toward her and she had to catch him to keep him from falling to the floor.

"What do you see when you look into his mind?" Emma asked

"Nothing intelligible. Like I said, none of the psionics who've attempted to tackle the problem have had any success. Whatever Genomex locked up in there, they locked it up well."

Emma addressed the short redheaded man. "What's your name?" she asked, bending down to match eye level.

"One zero one," came the soft, monotone answer. Emma raised her eyebrows and looked up at Marcus Angeles.

He shrugged his shoulders. "At some point the Genomex staff thought it would be amusing to give them binary names."

"So, there are probably at least four others?" Marcus gave another non-committal shrug. "Or were." Emma asked the mutant designated one zero one, "Can I call you Five?"

"I have no preference," he responded.

"Has anyone hurt you?" Looking into his mind, she saw a mental landscape more reminiscent of Sanctuary's computers than of a human intellect.

"My data integrity has not been compromised." Clever. His pain receptors were tied directly into his data integrity monitors. Damage to his body wouldn't cause pain, but any unauthorized access to the information he held would be excruciatingly painful and cause the mind to shut down.

Emma continued to probe, gently seeking out familiar patterns that might be bent to her will, but everything was so strange, she couldn't even get her bearings. A few times, Five's systems noticed her presence in his mind and he winced in pain. Not knowing how this brain worked meant no starting point to access the information it held. She had no idea where to look and was afraid of hurting him. "Why did you flee Genomex?" she asked

"The site integrity was compromised. I fled to preserve data integrity and security."

Marcus interrupted before Emma could ask another question. "Trust me, he has already been through a thorough Dominion interrogation. There's not a question you can ask that has not already been asked. You need to go into his mind."

"If you brought him to me, it's because all of the Dominion's efforts so far have failed. Am I right?" Angeles didn't respond. "So, step off and let me do this my way." She turned her attention back to the human computer. "Come into the living room with me and we'll continue this sitting down. "Marcus, unchain his ankles."

"I guess there's not much chance of him running off at this point." He unchained the captive and Emma led him into the next room where they sat together on her couch. Marcus took a seat on a nearby chair.

"Who can access your information?" she asked

"That is classified."

"Can Mason Eckhart access your secure data?"

"Mason Eckhart is dead," Five responded.

"Your Mutant X pal, Brennan, killed him," Marcus added. With difficulty, Emma let this comment pass. It may or may not be true, but interest in her past life was certain to be discouraged.

"Listen," Emma looked sharply over at the Dominion agent, "I can't do my job with you here. If you want me to open him up, leave him with me. I'll contact you when I have something."

"Sorry, can't do that. I have to monitor you. He may hold sensitive information you aren't privy to. Your job is just to open the door, not to look inside."

"All right, then shut up and be patient. I won't tell you again."

"Is that a threat?"

"Yes, it is absolutely a threat," Emma said, glaring at him. Under her breath she muttered, "I really wish Adam was here."

"Adam Kane?" Five asked. She turned her head quickly toward the Dominion agent, who did not seem surprised that the man was familiar with the former leader of Mutant X. She returned her attention to the human computer.

"Yes, I wish Adam Kane was here."

"He hates spiders," Five said.

"I didn't know that." Emma responded tentatively.

"Not Adam." He pointed at Marcus Angeles. "Him."

Emma looked over at the Gamma Team leader.

"Don't you dare," he warned.

Suddenly, swarming from every shadow in the room, tarantulas, black widows, brown recluse and a myriad of other spiders ran on their eight legs at the Dominion agent. "They're not real," he cried even as he jumped up from his chair and began trying to brush the arachnids off his arms and crush them underfoot.

"Let's go," she told Five and they ran past Marcus as he fell to the floor and writhed there, screaming in panic.

II

"Emma DeLauro, return to your apartment immediately or we will hunt you down." The message was transmitted from her comlink ring, directly into her ear, so that only she heard the message. Marcus Angeles had apparently recovered from his arachnophobic episode. Emma removed the ring and tossed it into the shrubbery in front of her apartment building. She scanned the surrounding area and detected the other members of Gamma Team. Choosing the direction that would most likely allow her to avoid all of them, she set off at a run, dragging Five behind her. This was a risky play, but Emma didn't trust the Dominion just as much as they didn't trust her. She had to see what the Genomex database held before it fell into potential enemy hands.

Running through the parking lots of several apartment complexes, Emma came across what she was looking for. A man and woman were getting into a Dodge Stratus. Still dragging Five behind her, she walked up to the man who had just taken a seat on the driver's side and asked, "Does she have a car as well?"

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"Why not let your lady friend drive tonight." Emma suggested.

The man turned toward the woman in the passenger's seat. "Why don't you drive tonight, Betty?"

"You know I'm afraid to drive on the freeway and you don't like driving my car," Betty said.

Emma looked at her. "You will never get over your fear unless you face it and tonight is the night to take that first step."

"You are right, young lady. Harold, I want to drive. Let's take my car." The woman opened the passenger door and climbed out of the car.

"As long as she's driving, Harold, why not let me borrow your car?" Emma suggested.

"That seems reasonable," the man said. He got out of the car and handed Emma the keys.

"I'll just leave the keys behind the driver's side tire when I get back, okay?"

"Sure," Harold said.

"Drive safely," Betty added.

"Get in the car," Emma instructed Five. She took her place behind the wheel and linked with the microchips of four tracking devices, disabling them. As soon as Five had fastened his seatbelt, she started the car up and backed out of the parking space. Harold and Betty waved at them as they drove off.

Emma wasn't sure where she was going, but she felt safer on the move. Five was uncommunicative. Emma decided to pull over on the side of a residential street in Burbank. She had driven without any preconceived idea of where she was going and figured this would be a random enough location that no one would be able to track her down any time soon. In a few hours, she hoped to get into Five's mind without exposing it to Dominion tampering once it was open.

She knew it was important to recognize that he was a human being. Despite what Genomex had done to him, somewhere, there must be a kernel of human emotion. Not only would that be the easiest point to exploit, unlocking it would be the key to reestablishing him as an individual.

"Let's take a walk," Emma suggested to Five and they both got out of the car. "Why aren't you trying to run from me?"

"I do not perceive an immediate threat. You are larger and stronger than I am so I do not think I could overpower you, nor do I feel that I could outrun you."

"But you would run if you had a good chance of getting away?" Emma asked. "Or attack me if you thought you would win?"

"The parameters governing that decision are constantly changing." Five answered.

"How do you know Adam Kane?" Emma asked.

"Classified."

"When I said the name 'Adam', you asked me if it was Adam Kane to whom I was referring. Why did you do that if your relationship with Adam is classified?"

"I have been seeking Adam Kane. Do you know his current whereabouts?"

"I last saw him at the Naxcon Chemicals building owned by Nicholas Fox. I was a member of his Mutant X team. There was a catastrophic explosion at the building and Adam hasn't been seen since. He might be dead, but his body was never found to my knowledge."

As she spoke, Emma probed Five's mind. Hidden deep within the smooth thought waves that so closely resembled the data transfers of a machine, was a tiny knot of confused, conflicted, repressed emotion. All she need do is play Alexander and cut that knot wide open to undermine all of the careful programming, training, and indoctrination he had been put through since his creation. Though it might give Marcus and the Dominion access the man's information, it might mean the destruction of any future normal functioning of his mind. Emma decided to eschew the quick cut and gently unravel the knot. Adam seemed to be the key. There was the faintest hint of emotion linked to the Mutant X leader.

"Did you know Adam from Genomex before he left?" Emma asked.

"Classified."

"How is that classified? You either knew him before he left Genomex, after he left Genomex or both. Did you know Paul Breedlove?"

"Classified," Five said again.

"Do you know that Adam worked for the Dominion?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Is he still alive?"

"There is a ninety-nine point seven percent chance that he is alive," Five told her.

"How did you know about Marcus and the spiders?"

"I have detailed information on a large number of New Mutants."

"Did you know what I would do with what you told me about him?" Emma asked.

"I computed there was a ninety-three percent chance you would use the information to separate me from Dominion custody."

"I can't let you go," Emma told him. "I'm going to have to give you back to the Dominion or they will come at us with everything they have. Unless you have some other idea."

"I do not have any information that can free you or me from the Dominion at this time. I realize that this is only a temporary furlough, but it is necessary as I require your assistance."

"I can't bring you to Adam. I really don't know where he is or if he is even alive still."

"You work for the Dominion, but like Adam, you are not fully in support of their agenda. I have partitioned the information in my mind into what the Dominion can safely know and what they can never be allowed to know. I wish to transfer the latter portion to you to bring to Adam."

"And you don't consider the information 'classified'?" Emma asked.

"It will be encrypted in your mind. Only Adam will be able to access it. If you locate him, inform him that you have information from Androputer Unit One-Zero-One regarding Dominique. I have a large amount of information about you in my files, Emma DeLauro, so I feel a high level of confidence in my probability calculations. My odds of finding Adam Kane are less than three percent, while you have a greater than fifty percent chance of finding him."

"Okay. Who is Dominique?" Emma wanted to know, though she was a hundred percent sure what Five's answer would be.

"Classified," he said. "Will you accept the transfer?"

"Won't they then just take the information from me?" Emma asked.

"The Dominion will be unaware that you possess my files and even if they do discover them, the files are encrypted. I will make available what I retain to the Dominion. There will be enough new information to offset attacking agent Angeles. I calculate the probability of the Dominion deciding to terminate you at less that two percent with only a zero point zero one percent chance of them succeeding."

"Don't you trust me with the unencrypted information enough to provide it so that I can take whatever actions Adam would take? Might it not even help me to find Adam?"

"No. You do not have his contacts or experience. Though the information might help you to find Adam, it would more likely lead you into extreme peril. Will you accept the transfer? There is an eighty percent chance that the black Dominion helicopters are already on their way here."

"All right. Do the transfer. I'll find Adam somehow." The small man reached up and put his arms on her shoulders, bending her over so that her eyes were at his eye level. He then pressed his forehead to hers and Emma felt an electrical charge surging into her brain. She closed her eyes against the light of the bright stream of energy flowing from Five's mind into hers. The transfer took a little over a minute.

Emma stood up straight when Five broke the connection and pressed her heels of her hands to her temples. She was disoriented and confused for moment before the cloud lifted. Turning her focus into herself, she located a large new block of information in her deepest memory. She could see that it was there, but attempting to access these memories only lead to bewilderment. None of it made any sense.

"That was intense." She looked into Five's mind and now everything he knew was an open book to her. "Before I take you back, I wanted to offer you something. Despite what Genomex did to you, I can see that you still have the core of human emotion. I saw that tied up portion of your mind when I first scanned you and I think I have figured out how to unlock it, if you want me to."

"There is a ninety-five percent chance that would kill me." Five thought for a moment. "Maybe someday, after all secrets have been revealed."

"Let's get back to the car," Emma suggested. They went back to the Dodge and drove to back to the apartment complex where she had borrowed the car. After placing the keys behind the driver's side tire, they began walking back. As Emma's apartment building came into view, a black helicopter descended and landed in the parking lot. Eight Dominion storm troopers dressed entirely in black, like the one's outside of Anthony Gervais's office, leapt out and encircled the pair. From the shadows, Marcus Angeles approached, followed closely by his Gamma Teammates, Ara Manson, Maxwell Drummer and Robert Maguire.

"The Dominion is considering a termination order on you, Emma DeLauro." Marcus stopped four paces from Emma.

"I only did what I had to do. You put me in an impossible situation. Fail due to your interference, or accomplish the mission at the risk of Dominion reprisal. I chose completing the mission. Here he is," she said indicating Five. "He is an open book. I did in a few hours what the entire Dominion couldn't do in how long? Months? Years?"

Emma and Marcus stared each other down for a few moments. The Dominion agent then turned to Five and scanned the mutant's mind, before speaking into his comlink saying, "I withdraw my request for the termination of Emma DeLauro. The package has been opened." As soon as he spoke, the eight storm troopers surged forward, took control of five and brought him to the helicopter. Marcus then took a few more steps toward Emma and reached out his hand. "I suppose you'll still need this," he said. It was her Dominion comlink ring, which she accepted and put on.

III

Emma had difficulty getting to sleep that night, worrying if she had made the right decision and wondering about the secrets locked in her brain. Where was Adam? Assuming he had survived, did he know that they were all alive? What happened after he reached the shore, after she lost consciousness? She was reassured that the Dominion and Five both seemed to believe he still lived. What was happening with her friends? Had Brennan really killed Mason Eckhart? How was Jesse? Were they safe with Lexa? How was Jesse? And Shalimar…?

It was strange after the previous night's events to go into work with normal people in a world that didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. With difficulty, she was able to put it all out of her mind and focus on enjoying her life. She wondered if a certain tennis player would visit her restaurant today, but decided she should restrain herself.

As she was reflecting on all of this, Dana Fairbanks came into the club restaurant and waived quickly at Emma. Emma waived back with a smile. The tennis player was wearing a white Fila warm-up jacket with black vertical lines over each shoulder and down the length. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail, which was how Emma saw her ninety percent of the time. Silently, Emma promised herself again that she wouldn't send anything to Dana's table. What she had seen last night was all too poignant of a reminder that the Dominion could crash down on her life at any moment.

A few minutes after Dana had taken her seat, Emma noticed four women enter the restaurant. Two were tall brunettes and the other two were blondes of average height. All were wearing sunglasses when they entered, but the lead blonde, wearing a green jacket, took hers off and went to the left, where she sat alone. Emma couldn't help but notice when the first brunette, who was wearing a pinstriped suit of high quality, looked at Dana and made a "shhh" gesture. She sat down and was joined by the second blonde, who was wearing a red coat. The fourth woman, slightly unkempt in oversized men's clothes, went directly to Dana's table and sat down with her. Emma briefly scanned their minds and it was clear that they all knew Dana. This was apparently some sort of surveillance mission

Emma felt all four of Dana's friends looking at her and quickly glanced out at the dining room. The brunette in the pin stripes and the blonde who was sitting with her immediately began kissing each other passionately on the mouth. She kept her expression neutral and concentrated on her work. Dana turned around to look at her; Emma could feel the waves of embarrassment and almost started laughing. The ladies filed toward the bathroom. Apparently phase one of the mission was complete. Emma strongly considered just going over to Dana, but part of her was interested to see what her friends would do next.

Busy sharpening a knife, Emma heard a throat clearing and looked up to see one of Dana's friends standing at the counter. Her hair was dark brown and very precisely arranged in a look she had once heard called "neatly messy". She was nearly Emma's height, but a little slimmer, with pale skin and the slightly androgynous build of a fashion model.

"Hi," the woman said, placing her sunglasses down on the marble countertop and leaning toward her.

"Sorry?" Emma responded, ducking down to look underneath a low fluorescent lamp.

"I was just wondering if you had those, uh," her voice was soft and a little raspy, "…you know those sweet little figs?" she finished.

"Oh, I know what you mean. I love figs. Um." Emma wasn't sure what this was about. "Unfortunately, they are out of season right now."

"Oh, they are? Well then, uh, I don't know. I was wondering if you just…if I could just have…if you could recommend something else?" Dana's friend was trying to get something out of her. Emma's eyes glanced over at Dana and then back again. "I just kind of have the," she gestured with her thumb touching her index and middle finger, "have the craving."

"Um, well, sometimes we have these champagne truffles for desert, but not today. Um, that's about all that comes to mind." Emma answered, shrugging her shoulders slightly.

"That's it?" the woman asked. An idea struck Emma. Could Dana not be sure that she was gay? With her powers, these things were always so obvious. She thought back and nothing she had done was overtly sexual. Perhaps she had been unusually friendly, but nothing more. Emma had to remind herself that although Dana was clearly out with her friends, she was still in the closet to the rest of the world. It was difficult for Emma to think like someone who could not read emotions, but it was the only explanation for what was going on here. If she was going to make her move, now was the time. All she had to do was let the friend know that she was a lesbian and things would develop from there. Or she could do nothing. Emma could let Dana and her friends believe her to be heterosexual and the whole thing would be nipped in the bud. She was not ready to expose Dana to the danger that might soon face her.

"Yeah, that's it," she said.

"Thank-you," Dana's friend said. She picked up her sunglasses and walked away. Emma could tell she had twisted her left hand around into a thumbs-down gesture. Soon afterward, all five walked out of the restaurant together.

IV

An hour later, Emma was glad of her decision. Into the restaurant walked Ara Manson.

"Jamiel, I need to go out on the floor for a minute," Emma told one of her line cooks.

"Sure thing, Lara," he said.

Emma walked around to the kitchen door and out into the dining area. She took a seat at the table with Ara.

"Are you people just taking turns?" Emma asked.

Ara ignored her. "Overall, the Dominion was pleased with your work concerning the androputer, though they can hardly approve of your avoidance of Dominion supervision."

"I did what I had to do to get the job done. If you feel a need to baby-sit me, do it in a way that doesn't interfere with the mission."

"We are all on the same team. None of us chose to be New Mutants. None of us chose to work for the Dominion, at least not initially. But we all came around. We all came to realize that the work of Dominion is for the betterment of Mankind. You many even be able to join our team in a permanent capacity."

"You could just leave me alone to live my life," Emma suggested.

"We've all been briefed on your mutation. You work for us and demonstrate your loyalty or the Dominion has a wildcard to eliminate. That is our policy. Your life is not worth the potential damage you could do if you work against the Dominion. The resources necessary to keep you under surveillance are only worth the expense if you work for us. Chairman Gervais explained this to you already. Accept it and adapt. Fighting it will only lead you to misfortune."

Emma waited a few moments, but Ara did not add anything more. Finally, she leaned forward in her chair, intertwining her fingers on the table in front of her and asked, "So what is it I am to do for you this time?"

"You will be joining the team at the Westland Casino in support of Mutant X." Emma raised her eyebrows at this. "You will have no interaction with them. We are simply working clean-up." Ara cautioned her.

"When?"

"Now. We're going to the plane together. You will be briefed during the flight."

"Do you guys have day jobs?" Emma asked.

"No. We have generous stipends, expense accounts, and no need to lead a double life. That's another advantage of proving your loyalty to the Dominion. You can leave this drudgery."

"Actually, I enjoy it. It has its own rewards. In any case, I can't just walk out."

"Fine. I'll give you ten minutes. You probably will not be available for work tomorrow, so make arrangements." Ara stood up to leave.

"Want me to grab us something to eat for the flight?" Emma asked in a slightly sarcastic tone of voice.

"No thank-you," she said. "I'm fine." With that, Ara left and Emma returned to the kitchen.

"Who was that? Girlfriend?" John asked.

"She could use a little meat on her bones," Jamiel added.

"Not a girlfriend and I did offer her something to eat but she said she wasn't hungry. She's from my other job. I have to leave now and I may not be able to make it in tomorrow. Do you think you guys can cover for me? I'll write up the specials real quick…something easy to prep."

"You gonna' let Mr. Alonso know?" Jamiel wanted to know.

"Yeah, I'll tell him. I'm sure he'll be fine with it. Actually, he recently said I don't have to live here like I did while I was training."

"I just hope he doesn't decide to come here himself. Guy can be a hard-ass," Jamiel said. "So what's this other job?"

"Oh, I'm a, uh, free-lance photographer," she said. "I have an opportunity to fill in for a job taking some photos for a casino ad campaign. You never know how long those things will go, because of the light. Anyway, I'll call Michael and then I have to leave right away."

"All right people," Marcus Angeles said, beginning the briefing. An image of a large hotel-casino resort appeared on the plane's main viewscreen. "We are on our way to the Westland Casino. Lexa Pierce is currently leading Mutant X on a mission to recover a genetically engineered prion." The image of the casino was replaced by the image of chemical diagrams. "A normal prion is a protein molecule that lacks nucleic acid, but this one has been modified with a retrogressive amino acid sequence, which changes proteins to match its own configuration, causing biological systems to implode, resulting in near instant death." The screen showed an animation of the prion infecting a normal protein and then a photo of a victim. "The Dominion first learned of the existence of this engineered protein thanks to Ms. DeLauro's unlocking of a psionic database mutant, and then tracked it to our destination. The casino is owned by Kristen Greg, an associate of a rogue geneticist known only as 'Dominique', who is likely the creator of the weapon." A photo of an attractive blond woman and the back of another woman's head appeared on the screen. "It is believed the prion could be turned into a devastating large-scale biological weapon if delivered into a city's water system, so it is imperative that it be kept from the wrong hands. Ms. Greg will be auctioning it off to the highest bidder. Our job here is simply support. Mutant X has the lead. We clean up anything that gets messy and go in hard if they fail. Any questions?"

"Do you know anything more about this Dominique?" Emma asked.

"Nothing I can tell you, DeLauro," Marcus answered.

"Anyone else? Good. This should be an easy one."

The briefing over, Emma leaned back in her seat and fell asleep. Some time later, she woke with a start to Max shaking her shoulder.

"We're on," he said. Emma followed Max and the rest of the Gammas out of the plane, which was cloaked, having landed in the rough of the eighteenth hole of the casino's golf course. Night had already fallen. Together, they ran toward the building, slowing to a quick walk as they came out from the cover afforded by the wooded areas of the golf course to the casino's main grounds. It seemed to be a high-end place, but Emma just got a quick look before they circled around behind to a service entrance near a loading dock. Inside she saw familiar woman leaning against a supply closet door.

"Why did you bring her?" Lexa Pierce asked, nodding toward Emma.

"She was assigned to the mission, same as the rest of us," Robert Maguire answered her.

"Go ahead. Try something. I'm at full strength," Emma threatened.

"Quit it, you two." Marcus Angeles stepped forward and between Emma and Lexa. "What do you need?"

Lexa opened the supply closet door and the body of an unconscious man with a scruffy beard and mustache fell out. "This is the problem. He's a New Mutant. Do an analysis and send the results to Jesse at Sanctuary. Then do a security sweep of the casino. We can handle all of the normals, but if they have one New Mutant working for them, they may have others. I'm going to go rejoin Shalimar and then see if I can keep Brennan's ass from doing something stupid."

"Good luck there," Emma muttered, momentarily forgoing her animosity towards the woman. She wasn't sure if Lexa heard her or not. She could only imagine how Brennan was chafing at Lexa taking the lead on this mission.

Marcus took charge of his group as Lexa left the loading area. He turned toward the feral. "Rob, you take this guy back to the plane and start an analysis." Pointing at Emma and Ara, he said, "You two walk the exterior and the hotel guest areas. Max and I will check the casino floor and employee only areas. Notify the entire group as soon as you detect any New Mutants by opening up a comlink channel, and then take them down. The rest will provide backup and hone in on your signals if you don't confirm success. Understood?" There was no dissent. Robert Maguire picked up the body of the unconscious man and slung it over his shoulder. "All right, go."

V

Emma and Ara left the loading area and began walking the grounds of the casino and adjacent hotel. There were many guests, employees, and security guards, but none of the minds Emma scanned were New Mutants. The grounds secure, Emma and Ara entered the hotel.

"How often does your team play the support role?" Emma asked.

"Almost never," Ara answered. "We're only playing second fiddle on this one because of you. The Dominion hopes you can replace Marcus on the team. Once a suitable replacement is found, he's being promoted."

"To what?"

"He can't tell us." The two women stepped into the elevator of the shorter section of the hotel.

Emma reached to press the button for the second floor and immediately got a hit. She lightly brushed each button with the tip of her finger and then pressed number six instead. "Open your comlink. Feral."

"Sure it's not your friend Shalimar?"

"Trust me, I'd know if it was her. This one's male," Emma said. The elevator opened to an empty hallway. Emma reached out with her mind and lead Ara to a stairwell. They ascended silently to an emergency exit. "Be ready," Emma mouthed and then flung open the door to the roof of this section of the hotel.

Their target, a man in his mid twenties who had been looking out over the pool, was already turning toward them. Ara let loose twin bolts of electricity as the Feral leapt to his left right into Emma's psionic blast. "Bagged one," Ara said into the comlink and closed the channel.

"Good job," Marcus responded. "Hold for instructions." After a minute he came on again. "Rob is going to come and pick up the package. Once he arrives, you can continue your patrol." Emma and Ara did not even have to wait five minutes before Maguire appeared on the roof.

"Ladies," he said.

"He's all yours," Ara said, indicating the unconscious man.

The Gamma Feral picked him up effortlessly and was out of sight in an instant.

"So I'm being groomed to replace Marcus?" Emma asked, picking up their previous conversation where it had left off as they made their way back into the hotel.

"Not so fast. Your loyalty is still in question, even if your skills are not. You could clearly step right into the job, but none of us trust you, except maybe Max. I tell things like they are. You are one major mess up away from termination. That thing the other night where you ran off on Marcus with the little red-headed dude was a lot worse than you think it was. The Dominion is giving you enough rope to hang yourself. Don't fuck up again."

A voice came over the comlink. It was Marcus. "The auction for the prion is about to begin. Shalimar Fox will be attempting to steal it while Brennan Mulwray and Lexa Pierce infiltrate the auction. I've received a report that a terrorist know as 'The Tiger' is in the area. This is a major concern as Mulwray is using this identity and therefore his cover is in danger of being blown. Proceed to the main casino floor. They may need us."

"We're on," Ara said. "Remember what I told you."

"I know, I won't fuck up," Emma muttered. The two women made their way down to the lobby and over to the more ornate and old fashion style casino.

Ara and Emma stayed together, blending in with the crowd watching an elderly man playing craps. "You getting anything?" Ara asked.

"It's difficult in a crowded room like this. With gamblers, their emotions are high and constantly in flux. I can't open myself up too much or I'll be overwhelmed." She searched for something out of synch, locking onto everyone in sight one at a time. At least a dozen undercover security guards walked the floor, but they did not concern her. Uniformed security guards dotted the floor at key points as well. None of these were unusual for a functioning casino.

"Bidding has begun," Marcus said through the comlink.

"What's your location?" Ara asked.

"We're right beneath you. I'm tracking Fox as she bypasses the security measures. So far, so good."

"I don't think we're near enough to the action," Emma said. "I'm not getting anything out of the ordinary."

A few minutes later, they heard Angeles's voice again. "It's blown. Mulwray and Pierce are on their way to rendezvous with Fox. Hopefully Shalimar got to the prion in time."

Ara asked, "Any instructions?"

"Contain the prion. Mutant X is expendable."

"You okay with that?" Ara asked Emma.

"What do you think?" Emma closed her eyes and gently stepped down her filters. Anxiety seeped into her mind and she began to tremble slightly. Beads of sweet formed on her forehead. There were undercurrents of depression, despair, fear, lust, and mania pressing in from all sides. Emma opened up a little more and then she saw them. There were ten New Mutants within range who were unknown to her. Four were in pursuit of Lexa and Brennan. Six more were converging on Marcus and Max. "Follow me."

Two security guards stood on either side of a door marked "Employees Only". The door was armored and had a keypad entry with fingerprint recognition. Emma reached out with her mind to one of them and then said, "I'd like to speak with the management."

"I can take you to meet Ms. Greg," he offered.

The other guard found this unusual and said, "Ms. Greg may be willing to come out onto the floor to meet you, but the area behind this door is for staff only."

Emma touched his mind, "What would Kristen say if she found out you had delayed her good friend Dominique?" The guard had never met Dominique, but the name had been whispered among Kristen Greg's staff. All anyone knew was that she was some how their boss's boss. Something about this woman's manner made him believe this might well be her. She had an aura about her.

"My apologies," the guard said. "Sam, escort the ladies to Ms. Greg right away." Sam entered his password and pressed his finger to the scanner.

When the door opened, Ara passed through first, followed by Emma, who told the guards, "It's all right. We know our way. Stay at your posts." The door closed behind them and neither guard had any memory of letting the women pass.

"That's why every team needs a Psionic," Ara said. "Whereto now?"

"Down." Emma looked along the hallway and located a sign indicating an elevator and stairwell. As soon as they opened the door for the stairs, they heard gunfire and the crackle of electricity being unleashed in the distance. "C'mon," Emma yelled set off at a run, taking two steps at a time.

Coming out on the lower level, Emma took a hit from a psionic blast and stumbled back wards, dazed. Ara reached out of the doorway and let loose a Tesla coil that took down a tall male Psionic.

"You okay?" Ara asked, helping Emma up.

"It's all right. I blocked most of it. We have to hurry."

"A little less recklessly this time," Ara advised as they both took off at a run in the direction of the gunfire. "Bob, we got another package down here." There was no response.

Emma stopped and put her arm out to stop Ara. "Up ahead." She fired two balls of mental energy at a pair of Elementals just as they were turning back to face the two women. Instead, both launched an attack on their unsuspecting Molecular companion. The first froze the woman and the second sent her tumbling down the passageway. Ara then zapped them both into unconsciousness.

Ara opened a comlink channel. "Marcus, are you there?" Again, there was no response. "Max? Robert?"

They had taken out the four mutants pursuing Brennan and Lexa. Now Emma tried to locate the other six. She hoped Mutant X would be able to handle the normals. "I'm looking for them," she told the Ara. Emma wondered if it had been a mistake not to warn Marcus and Max about the enemy mutants that were closing in on them, but she had feared doing so would have prevented her from helping her old teammates. She opened herself wider and wider, despite the increasing onslaught of emotion from all around her, especially directly above in the casino. Finally, she linked with Max and saw through his eyes. "They're being held in the plane." Emma also picked up Shalimar, Brennan and Lexa. They were in trouble, but had a plan. The Gammas needed her more right now.

"Can you tell how many?"

"Eight New Mutants. Possibly some normals."

"Let's go!" Ara urged. She and Emma quickly, but cautiously, made their way to the golf course where their plane had landed. It was too late. The aircraft was taking off just as they arrived. Although still cloaked, the thrust of the jets was clearly visible and sprayed dust and debris into their upturned faces.

"What now?" Emma asked.

"We contact the Dominion and await instructions," Ara responded.


	5. Labor

5 – Labor

I

"Let's think things through before we go to the Dominion," Emma suggested.

"What can we possibly do? They're gone," Ara said, gesturing futilely toward the sky in the direction her teammates had been taken.

Emma squatted down and touched her hand to an area of grass that had been trampled by footsteps. "Faint images, but nothing I can use or make sense of," she said. "Max, Rob and Marcus were definitely on the plane when we left the casino. I believe I sensed seven New Mutants when they took off."

"So, minus our people, Lexa's mutant, and the Feral from the roof, that means two we have never come across left in the plane," Ara said.

"Assuming our prisoners stayed as captors. They may have returned to the casino and been replaced by other New Mutants. Regardless, I believe I felt the presence of an four total, who stayed on the casino grounds after the rest of your team was captured."

"The four we took out to help Mutant X spring the prion have probably recovered by now, meaning there are at least eight enemy New Mutants here and four in the plane. Of course there are likely more wherever Marcus and the rest are being taken." Both women were silent with their thoughts for a moment. Then Ara spoke into her comlink, "Lexa, is your team clear?" She paused a moment for the response and then informed Emma of what she heard. "The mission was successful. The prion is now in Dominion hands."

"I had assumed Marcus was the only one who could contact them," Emma said.

"He's the only one who is supposed to. Lexa didn't seem to question it though. She's a lone wolf. Never cared about anyone from what I've heard. Well, maybe one person, but that's another story."

"Who?" Emma asked.

"You're not cleared for the history of Lexa Pierce. So, have you thought things through enough, or can I contact the Dominion?" Ara was losing some of her composure.

Emma could see Ara's deep concern for her teammates and could empathize fully with her. If Brennan, Shalimar and Jesse were taken…she didn't want to think about it. "You say you're a straight-shooter, right Ara?"

"Yeah."

"Then tell me," Emma said, "is the Dominion a 'no man left behind' type of outfit or a 'cut our losses and plausible deniability' one?" Ara took a moment to consider the question and Emma could feel the woman's anger overtaking her fear and grief.

"The mission was successful. Sometimes casualties are inevitable, which is why no one operative knows enough to compromise the organization as a whole."

"To me, that sounds like we need to come up with a plan," Emma said. She closed her eyes and concentrated. "I can't find any of the New Mutants. They might have headed back to the casino by a different route than we walked here. At this distance, their presences would be masked by so many other sentients. I think we have to make our way back there and find out what they're doing."

Ara considered a moment, but could see no better course of action. "I agree," she said.

Emma DeLauro and Ara Manson stealthily made their way back to the loading dock between the hotel and casino where they had met Lexa earlier. "Do you sense any New Mutants in the area now?"

"Still none." Emma opened herself as wide as she was willing to allow. "No one. Just you."

"Could they be cloaked somehow?" Ara asked.

"Possible. Of course, with the prion gone, there may no longer be any need for so much muscle."

"You think they might have just left? If that's the case, then we're lost."

"Not quite," Emma said. "We can suppose the New Mutants were supplied by Dominique as was the prion. We know that Kristen Greg, the casino owner, is an associate of Dominique and acting as agent for the sale of the weapon. Anyone who would create something like the prion weapon could not be pleased to learn that two enemy agents infiltrated the auction or that the prion itself was stolen before it could be sold."

"So, if Kristen Greg is still alive, she might be willing to turn," Ara said. Emma could feel a glimmer of hope in the woman. Ara pulled out a small object that looked like a compact. She flipped it open to reveal a tiny computer on which she pulled up the schematics for the casino. They showed the location of the owner's office. "This way," she said.

In two minutes, Emma and Ara came to a hallway with black tiled walls hung with giant gaudy mirrors. They had encountered no one to that point. Turning the corner just before Kristen Greg's office, they saw two guards posted at her door and Emma immediately blasted them. Ara stepped over the unconscious bodies, zapped the security lock, and silently opened the door a crack. From within, they overheard one side of a conversation.

A woman's voice said, "Yes…I don't know what happened…Maybe the weapon is unstable…It won't happen again." Then there was silence.

Ara took the lead, stepping into Kristen Greg's office. Emma followed her into a luxurious room decorated with fine art and dark stained woodwork. On the right were a series of rectangular windows covered by blue translucent blinds, which admitting a subdued light from the outside illumination. To the left was a conference table and chairs. In the far corner a blond woman holding a cordless phone sat at a glass-topped wooden desk.

"Dominique has a very specific way of making sure things don't happen again," Ara said.

"Who are you and how did you know who I was talking to?" Kristen Greg asked. She put down her phone and reached into a desk drawer.

"We are your last chance." Ara let electricity spark from her fingertips. Kristen put both hands empty on top of the desk, leaving whatever she had reached for in the drawer where it was. "We're with the people who took the prion. Normally, we wouldn't intervene in a case like yours. Bad guys killing each other makes our jobs that much easier, but in this case, if you help us, we can offer you a degree of protection."

"What kind of protection?"

"You do know you're dead, right?" Emma asked. She formed a ball of psionic energy and let it pulsate in front of her forehead. "You know what kinds of abilities you are up against. We can match those powers and we have no interest in killing you, but there's no negotiation here. Come with us and answer all of our questions or I'll rip the information from your mind and leave you for Dominique. That's all we offer."

"I guess I have to take it. I need to get some things."

"You don't need anything. We leave now," Ara ordered. "Call down and tell your people to have a car ready."

II

Kristen Greg, Ara Manson, and Emma DeLauro exited the Westland Casino to find a stretch limousine waiting for them. All three women climbed into the back. The casino owner gave her driver instructions over the intercom to proceed to a warehouse just outside of town.

"The car will take you where you want to go," Ms. Greg told the mutants. "I met with some of Dominique's people there twice before, but I don't know if they still use the facility."

"It's a start," Ara said.

"If those freaks are still there, it doesn't seem like the best place to take me to protect me," Kristen said.

"The safest place for you right now is with us. We'll put you in protective custody once we confirm you are being straight with us." Ara leaned back in the comfortable leather seat. "If you are leading us into a trap, we'll kill you just as surely as Dominique will."

"Speaking of Dominique," Emma jumped in, "what do you know about her? Did you meet her at the place we're going?"

"No, it was on a tropical isl—," Kristen began to answer.

"Don't you answer her, Ms. Greg," Ara interrupted. She turned to Emma. "We have a specific mission here. You are not to go on a fishing expedition for classified information."

"Ara, if we are going up against Dominique, we need to know everything about her we can," Emma insisted.

"Then ask about the warehouse. That's where we're going."

"All right," Emma said with a look to make the brunette Elemental know she was only dropping the subject temporarily. She turned her attention back to Kristen Greg. "What do you remember about the security at the warehouse?"

"It was a large complex," she said, "and appeared to be completely surrounded by electric fences topped with razor wire. I only saw the main entrance, where there was a manned gatehouse and several security guards walking the perimeter and patrolling the yard in front of the main building."

Ara showed Kristen her miniature computer with the location of the warehouse highlighted on a satellite image. "This is where you gave the driver directions to take us, right?"

"Yes, that looks like it. I remember looking at similar images before I went there."

"Where's the gatehouse?" Ara handed the woman a tiny stylus, with which she circled a small area.

"I believe it was this, here. Then we drove the car into this large building," she drew a line to a long flat-roofed structure that formed a giant rectangle around a central courtyard, which would be completely hidden from outside view at ground level.

Ara showed Emma the image and tapped the stylus on the courtyard. "My guess is they landed the aircraft here."

"If they're there," Emma said. She looked at her watch and then at the screen. "We should arrive within fifteen minutes. How close do you want to get with the car?"

"Tell your driver to turn off when he gets to 18th Street and park the car," Ara told Kristen Greg and she complied. "He can then return to the casino and the three of us will proceed on foot."

"I'm going with you? I thought I'd wait in the car," Kristen said, clearly surprised.

"There's a good chance we were followed or that there is a tracking device in this car or that our approach has already been noticed," Ara said. "As distasteful as I find you, I don't want to come back and find you dead. Not yet anyway. They'd probably kill your driver too, assuming he's not one of them." Kristen Greg didn't say a word to that.

Ten minutes later, the driver turned off the main highway and let them off six blocks from the warehouse. The three women climbed out of the limousine, which promptly drove off.

"Do you really think he could have been aligned with Dominique?" Kristen asked, indicating the driver.

"I didn't detect anything, but it's not impossible," Emma said. "Such thoughts are usually not broadcasted until they are being acted upon. Or a telepath could implant a subliminal command with a trigger, which would be almost undetectable."

"It doesn't matter. He's gone. Let's go," Ara ordered them.

On the map, the fenced in area where the warehouse was located covered approximately thirty acres. The front side, where the main gate was located extended four hundred yards. Ara directed them to walk down a street that ended to the left side of the main entrance.

"Emma, do you detect anyone?" Ara asked. They were now within sight of the perimeter fence. There wasn't a single light on in the warehouse. The grounds were only illuminated by the streetlights along the street that ran parallel to the fence.

"I don't feel anyone monitoring for intruders," Emma said. "No active signatures."

"We need to know what we're up against. See if you can detect any New Mutants in the area at all."

"I can try." Emma came to a stop and let her body relax. She closed her eyes and located a safe spot in her mind. It surprised her that when her mind sought a place of comfort, it didn't go back to Sanctuary and Mutant X, but rather to a woman with blue eyes, brown hair, a big smile, and a small mole on the left side of her chin. It was the future that could be rather than the past that was gone. Emma opened up her mind. "Nothing. I don't even detect any Normals in the compound."

"Now what?" Ara asked.

"I guess we still go in. Maybe I can get a hit off of something," Emma said.

"All right, let's just go right up to the front door then." Ara led the other two women to then end of the side street they had been walking down and then over a block to the entrance. The main gate was locked with a heavy chain and padlock, which the Elemental removed with an arc of electricity.

"This is definitely the same place," Kristen Greg said. "I guess they've abandoned it."

"Maybe," Emma said in a low voice. The presence of fifteen New Mutants had suddenly become apparent to Emma's psionic senses. She also could detect their three captured teammates still inside. "Then again, maybe not."

III

"Are you getting something?" Ara asked.

"I think we're in trouble," Emma said. "Something device must have been running in that building before to shield any brain wave emanations, because I feel them now." Just as she spoke, floodlights filled the yard in front of the main warehouse with a blinding glare.

Three doors opened and five silhouetted figures filed out from each to form a semicircle around the three women. Emma, Ara, and Kristen squinted against the light. A man stepped forward from the group, becoming more clearly visible. He was about six feet tall with a short beard and mustache. His hair was dark brown. He was holding his left wrist up near his left ear. Emma recognized him as the New Mutant that Lexa had called Gamma Team in to clean. "Thanks for coming," he said.

"We just want our people," Ara responded.

"And how do you intend to repair the damage you and your friends have done?"

"Can't you people just make some more of your mutant protein?" Emma asked.

"You think I want you to return the prion?" The lead man laughed. "Sure we can make more, but who will buy it? Our entire organization is discredited. Our only hope is to turn the people who stole the prion over to the auction participants."

"How would they even know we were involved?" Ara asked.

"Not you. We will trade the three we captured earlier and allow the two of you to go free in exchange for the Feral and her two companions who stole the weapon. 'The Tiger' saw all three of them make off with the prion. If we can hand them over, it ill go a long way towards repairing our reputation. We will also give him Ms. Greg, of course."

"I can't authorize that," Ara told him.

"Then you will all die. That is the only alternative I see…once we find out for whom you are working that is," he smiled. "Lose three and we part ways or lose five and we will declare war on your entire organization. The redhead will stay as a liaison and an additional degree of security until the exchange can be made."

Ara considered his words and then said, "I can bring your proposal to my supervisors." She contacted the Dominion on her comlink, but the channel was not open to Emma, so she only heard one half of the conversation. Ara stated the situation and the terms of the exchange, then waited for a reply from someone in authority. Emma wasn't sure if she was stalling for time or taking this as a serious offer. She hoped the Dominion wouldn't turn its people over to murderers and terrorists.

"They agree to your terms," Ara said.

"Excellent." Kristen Greg turned and attempted to run, but the mutant fired a beam of light at her and she was frozen motionless. He lowered his left hand to his side and there was a slight relaxation among the opposing mutants. "Come inside and we will work out the details."

"Let's go, Emma," Ara said.

"Like hell I will," Emma exclaimed. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Trust me, Emma, it'll be okay."

"Not if you plan to sacrifice Brennan and Shalimar!"

"It is for the greater good. If we become too big of a threat to Dominique's organization, it becomes a mutually assured destruction situation. They will take us down and destroy themselves in the process. We can't allow that."

"Sounds like that would be in the best interests of mankind," Emma said.

"You don't know what kind of collateral damage there would be, Emma. Believe me. They laid it out for me crystal clear on the comlink. We stopped the prion and hurt our enemies. Three lives is not too high a cost for a successful mission."

"Is there a problem?" the lead hostile mutant asked. He addressed Ara, "How will you honor our agreement if you cannot control your people?"

Ara turned away from Emma to answer the man. "The people who stole the prion were members of Mutant X. Their names were Lexa Pierce, Brennan Mulwray, and Shalimar Fox. Forgive my associate," she said and gave Emma a look, "but it is a difficult deal. They were friends of hers."

"Then let's make sure she's pacified," the lead mutant said. He put his left hand up to his temple to fire his paralysis ray.

"I've had enough of this," Emma said. Her pupils fully dilated, so that none of the blue of her irises showed. Then a pulse of dark energy surged forth from her mind, rippling outward to join the night.

No one was left standing except Emma. Her vision showed the world in high contrast with all of the colors shifting toward brilliant white or darkest black. She walked forward to the mutant who had been about to attack her. Reaching down, she grabbed a gun from his holster, released the safety, cocked it, and aimed it at the back of his head. Her finger pressed lightly against the trigger, but not hard enough to fire. She was trembling, but then color returned to her world and blue returned to her eyes. She put the safety back on and dropped the gun next to the unconscious man.

Emma walked across the silent space to the center warehouse entrance. The inside was set up like an office with dozens of cubicles in an open floor plan. There were about twenty people inside, all Normals and all unconscious like those outside. The non-mutants would take much longer to recover and so were of little immediate concern. Touching one, Emma sensed minor brain damage, but no more than a few nights of hard drinking. They'd all wake up with headaches.

Halfway across the building, there was a spiral stairway that led up to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, Emma turned to her left, honing in on where she sensed Marcus, Robert and Max. The upper floor plan was more closed in. Emma walked down a hallway that ended at an armored door with an electronic security system. She reached out with her mind, connected to the system's internal computer, and also tapped into the unconscious minds around her. In thirty seconds, the door opened.

Inside were a dozen cells with thick transparent walls. Three of them also had active force fields. There was also a small armory. Five guards lay unconscious on the ground. Emma wasn't sure how much longer she had until the New Mutants outside started to recover. In the armory, she located a cache of subdermal governors and a gun to apply them with. She also found double loop disposable police restraints. Breaking the Dominion agents out would have to wait. She had to dispose of the enemy.

Hurrying down to the first floor Emma made quick use of the subdermal governors and fired one into each of Dominique's mutants. She then used the restraints to bind all of their hands behind their backs, their feet together, and then wrists to their ankles. By the time she got to the last one, she had to use a psionic pulse to knock the mutant out again. Ara was beginning to stir as well. Emma knelt beside the slender Elemental and gently helped her to a sitting position. The first few words the woman said were unintelligible. Emma touched her mind to help her focus.

"What happened?" Ara asked.

IV

"We won," Emma told Ara as she slowly came to her senses. "Can you get up? We can go rescue the others now, but we should probably call in backup to take care of this lot." She waved her hand to indicate the collection of bound men and women around them.

Groggily and with Emma's help, Ara was able to get to her feet. Suddenly she pushed herself away from Emma. "What did you do?" There was fear in her eyes.

"Don't you remember?" Emma asked. She reached into Ara's mind and changed her memory. Now she recalled battling against overwhelming odds, lucky turns of events, mistakes by the enemy, and finally being taken out by a telepath, leaving Emma to face three remaining mutants. Emma duplicated these memories in Dominique's people, changing the perspective for each, as they struggled to recover, only to find themselves bound. The fear was gone from Ara's eyes.

"I remember, I think," she said with only a slight amount of doubt. She made the call over her comlink for the Dominion to come with a large cleanup team as soon as possible.

"There are also a bunch of non-mutants inside. I took out two dozen while you were out, but there could be more," Emma said.

For a moment, Ara began to question how Emma would have so much power left over after combating New Mutants, but then it suddenly seemed reasonable for a Telempath of her level. She relayed the information about the additional cleanup needed.

While Ara dealt with the Dominion, Emma went over to Kristen Greg and touched her forehead. She had been the closest Normal to Emma when she had released her dark energy pulse. The full force of her attack seemed to have caused more serious brain damage in the casino owner than in the non-mutants inside the warehouse. She was alive, but Emma wasn't sure that she'd wake up the same woman.

"Is she okay?" Ara asked.

Emma jumped slightly at the question. "I don't know. She seems to have been caught in the crossfire." Whatever information she had about Dominique might now be lost.

"Did you find where the others are being held?"

"Yeah. Follow me," Emma said. A few of Dominique's mutants had recovered enough to start cursing them and uttering threats of revenge. She had some misgivings about leaving them unattended, but it seemed all was secure. She led Ara up to the second floor, where Max, Rob, and Marcus were all awake. Ara quickly used her powers to bypass the locks on their cells. Each of the men hugged the two women and began plying them with questions. Emma told them it would have to wait. There was work to be done. She found the device in the armory to remove the subdermal governors they had all been implanted with. Max was sent to locate their aircraft, while the rest of them went down to make sure the enemy New Mutants remained secure until the Dominion arrived. When they came, questions would be asked.

The mission debriefing at Dominion headquarters was interminable. Emma was separated from the others and brought to what appeared to be a police interrogation room. She was instructed to sit by herself in a chair while five men, all Psionics, asked her questions. Behind them was a mirrored wall, which was certainly two-way. They were also filming her in video and infrared.

"Emma DeLauro. Are you aware of the consequences of your actions last night?" The questioner was a man of average height with blond hair of a paleness approaching white.

"Yes, I haven't gotten a wink of sleep," she responded.

"Ms. DeLauro, why did you disobey orders?" he asked.

"Our orders were to secure the prion, which we did. We also came through the mission with no losses. Things didn't go exactly according to plan, but we adapted and came through it all right."

"You were ordered to exchange three members of Mutant X for three members of Gamma Team. Instead, you chose to engage the parties with whom we had come to an arrangement in hostilities, while at a great tactical disadvantage."

Emma kept her eyes locked on the white-haired man and ignored the other four. She could feel all of them observing her psionically. Their minds were probing an examining hers.

"Well?" the interrogator asked. "What do you have to say?"

"I wasn't aware that you had asked another question," Emma said. "Besides, I never received such orders. My comlink connection was limited. It was restricted to direct communication to or from the Gammas."

"But Ms. Manson relayed the orders to you," said another man. He was older and overweight, perhaps three hundred pounds. It was rare to see an obese New Mutant with their ultra high metabolisms.

"I suspected it was a ploy on the part of one of the enemy telepaths forcing Ara to say that. It didn't seem to make sense to trade three Dominion agents for another three Dominion agents, especially when that trade would strengthen a terrorist organization."

"That is not for you to decide, Ms. DeLauro," the second man said.

"Then next time, give me full access to communications, or better yet, don't send me on any more of your half-assed, ill-planned missions." Emma did not have to feign the anger she projected at them.

"Do you realize this means war with Dominique?" the first man asked.

"Bring her on. I'm not impressed so far." Emma sat back in her chair and crossed her arms across her chest. The debriefing went on for three more hours more or less in the same vein. They questioned her every action and she explained why she did what she did. Most of the time was spent interrogating Emma about the battle at the warehouse. Ultimately, all of the stories from the other debriefings and interrogations matched hers, however improbable the descriptions of the events seemed. There was no denying that every enemy New Mutant was captured, which was solid supporting evidence for Emma's explanation, as the last one standing, of what happened. If it was to be a war, they had to admit that thanks to Emma DeLauro, the Dominion had struck a devastating blow.

V

Emma was exhausted when she finally arrived back at her apartment at around three o'clock in the afternoon. She had been taken to a local airport and given a commercial ticket back to LAX with some cash to cover her expenses.

She called work and asked if they needed her today. Normal life seemed especially appealing at the moment, even though she was exhausted from having only taken short naps at Dominion headquarters while waiting to be debriefed, in the car on the way to the airport, and on the plane. Jamiel asked if she could make it in before five for the dinner crowd and Emma agreed. She undressed, showered, and went to work. The hectic, but controlled environment of a busy kitchen helped her to drive the memories of the previous night from her mind.

At ten o'clock, it was almost with regret that Emma removed her chef uniform and changed to go home for the night. She put on light blue jeans with a large black belt and a darker colored jean jacket over a thin t-shirt that just barely reached to top of her pants. As she locked her locker, she felt a familiar presence approaching. Although tired to the bone, a rush of adrenaline spiked through her body. Dana must have just gotten out of the shower, because when Emma saw her, she was only wearing a white robe and was rubbing her wet hair with a towel.

"Hey," Emma called out to her.

Dana turned to look at her. "Hi."

"So, did you hear from Subaru? Did you get it?" Emma couldn't help feeling excited for her. She really liked this woman. Her other life was forgotten whenever she saw the beautiful tennis player.

"I did get it," Dana said.

"Oh my god, that's fantastic! I knew you would." Emma couldn't help but smile.

"Thanks."

"Well, they're lucky to have you."

"Oh, thanks." Dana was embarrassed by the praise and her feelings for the redheaded chef.

"Well, um, good night," Emma said. She was still unsure how to act. Maybe today wasn't the day.

"Good night," Dana said.

Turning away from the new face of Subaru, Emma began to walk out of the locker room, but found she couldn't leave. Two years. She might be throwing away two years of happiness. Maybe less if the Dominion sent her on another mission like last night. She remembered her safe place. Fuck it, she thought. Didn't she deserve this? Dana obviously had feelings for her too. Didn't they both deserve it? Why not try?

Emma was sure she could keep Dana safe while they were together. In fact, she could keep her safer than any Normal ever could. There was no guarantee things would continue beyond a first date anyway. These two years could be the best of both of their lives. If she found Adam, she might even have more than that. Any threat to Dana was minimal in any case. She was just using the possible danger as an excuse to avoid the risk of attachment. She was only on the periphery of the Dominion. No one was after her. She wasn't with Mutant X and opposing the Genetic Security Agency. The Dominion might still have reason to question her loyalty, but so far, she had done their bidding. Although she had her own misgivings about their mission and methods, there was no indication they would go after the people she cared about. She was on the side of the guys with the big guns, not the underdog. If her genetic structure couldn't be stabilized, she would be dead in two years and Ms. Fairbanks would be out of what little danger there might be. She could go on to live a long, wonderful life. Hopefully Dana would be able to forget her, though Emma hoped that she would never be forgotten. But she was getting way ahead of herself—first things first.

A few seconds after saying goodbye, Emma returned. She walked straight at Dana, looking down into her blue-gray eyes, and backing her up against a bank of lockers. Emma placed a hand on either side of Dana, trapping her. Their eyes locked for a moment and then Emma leaned forward with her head tilted to the right and softly kissed Dana's lips. With a small smack, their lips parted and Emma kissed her again.

Breaking away from the dumbstruck athlete, Emma said, "Just in case you were still wondering." She smiled and then left again. Once out of sight, she grinned ear to ear and couldn't help but smile and giggle all of the way home. She had never been so happy.

The next day, her mind on a million things in addition to working hard in the kitchen, Emma experienced one of the rare moments when she was able to completely cut herself off from the emotions of those around her. She knew that her own happiness was transmitting itself to everyone, spreading good cheer throughout the staff so that their emotions were faint echoes of her own and thus nearly invisible to her. Normally, Emma would have to strain to cause this effect, but with the memory of the kiss still on her lips and in her mind, it was completely effortless. So consumed was she with thoughts of Dana, that after she dropped off a container of freshly washed greens to the prep area, and began slicing some red peppers, she was completely surprised when the object of her affections appeared in the flesh.

"Hey," Dana said.

"Hey," Emma replied, letting her voice rise higher and fall longer. "Owww," she said as she nipped her finger with the knife. She had been clumsy and distracted all day.

"Oh my god! Oh, oh my god," Dana said, walking toward her. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Emma assured her.

"Oh, Jesus, you're disfigured."

"I'm not disfigured." It was a somewhat nasty little cut, but her New Mutant DNA would handle it soon enough.

"But I could have killed you when you were…," Dana tried to make a chopping motion.

"It happens all the time."

"Should we call a doctor?" Dana asked.

"Dana!" Emma exclaimed. Laughing, she cleaned the cut on her left hand and covered the new injury with a rubber prophylactic. She then held up her hand, showing Dana that her other four digits had already received similar attention. Counting them off, she showed Dana her index finger: "Second degree burn from the Béchamel sauce;" her middle finger: "Runaway shish kebab;" her ring finger: "An attack from a particularly hostile live lobster;" her pinky: "And, um, an electric can opener." On most people, the finger covers would protect from infection of the cuts or contamination of the food, but for Emma, they disguised her unnaturally quick healing.

"Is there anything I could do?"

"You could kiss it and make it better," Emma said, holding up her thumb. They both laughed slightly. Then Dana tried to compose herself into seriousness.

"Um, I was wondering if maybe sometime…."

"I would love to," Emma answered, saving Dana from completing the question.

"Really? Okay. Okay. Is Thursday night okay?"

"Thursday night is great."

"Where do you want to go?" Dana asked.

"Anywhere you're going?"

"Yeah, but you're a food person, so I want to take you some place really good, like L'Orangerie," Dana offered.

"No, no, no, that's way to expensive," Emma said.

"I know, but I'll take care of it."

"We're not starting out that way." There was a short silence and Emma knew she had to make a suggestion now that she had turned Dana's down. "Um, there's…there's this little place in Koreatown that I've been dying to check out."

"Do I need to make a reservation?" Dana asked.

"How 'bout if I take care of that part and you just pick me up at eight."

"Okay," Dana said with a big smile.

"Okay," Emma repeated.

"Okay," Dana said again, taking a step backwards.

"Okay," Emma repeated again, amused by the other woman's discomfiture.

"Okay, bye," Dana finally said to break the cycle. She took another step backwards, turning around away from Emma.

"Hey!" Emma said, causing Dana to turn back around towards her.

"Yeah?" Dana asked.

"Thanks for asking me out," Emma said.

Dana smiled and with mock machismo said, "Oh yeah, no problem." She took a step backwards without looking and bumped right into a busboy, letting out a grunt. The busboy gave her a dirty look and kept going.

Emma turned back to her work as Dana managed to negotiate her way out of the kitchen, but then she realized they had both forgotten something very important. Emma hurried across the kitchen and through the swinging doors out into the dining room. "Dana!" she called.

Dana stopped and came back toward the kitchen. "I hope you're not having second thoughts already," she said.

"No," Emma said, "but you'll need this." She quickly scrawled her address and phone number in a notepad she took from the inner pocket of her apron. She ripped off the page and gave it to Dana. "Can you read my writing?"

"Yeah, it's fine. Thanks. I probably wouldn't have thought about it until I was in the car." They both laughed. "So, bye again." Dana gave a short wave and left the dining area. Emma returned to the kitchen.


End file.
